The Paris Bookseller

By Kerri Maher

If you’ve ever been to Paris or looked at any visitors guides or blogs about Paris, you may have come across the bookstore called Shakespeare and Company. 

A little history… In 1920, in Post war Paris, An American lady by the name of Sylvia Beach decided to open an English language bookshop. It drew English speaking writers, poets, expats and tourists alike to this fmaous bookshop. 

Top writers from the 20th century such as Hemingway, James Joyce and Ezra pound were all known as frequent customers and friends of Sylvia. Eventually a award winner of the knights of the legion of honour in 1938, the highest award for both military and French citizens. 

The Paris bookseller is a biography novel based on Sylvia’s life, the opening and day to day life of Shakespeare and Company.

I actually found this book in Shakespeare and company when I was last in Paris. Although its not the original one, as this was closed near the beginning of world war II when Paris was invaded.

 The “new” one was renamed Shakespeare and company by George Whitman in 1951, originally called Le Mistral. George being an American himself had envisioned a similar idea for the bookstore as Sylvia once had.

Based on the left bank Paris, it gives a glimpse into post war Paris, starting in 1919, and the prosperity of Paris in the 1920s and the depression of the 1930’s, but also how censorship, prohibition, conserver-ship and dictatorship were affecting the world in this era.

Although this book was sometimes a little slow in the plot, I found it all consuming and couldn’t put it down.

Highly recommend!

Steph xx