In this age when smartphones have taken over civilization, the French still cling to their paperbacks—and demand deference in conversation. Parisians still laugh out loud in cafés and frown if you ask for directions without saying Bonjour first!
Walking through Paris convinces you that history and culture aren’t just facts or curiosities here. They breathe, thrive, and redeem even the casual visitor. The writers who once flocked to France must have been chasing what only the French could describe as joie de vivre. Even the picturesque countryside still echoes with Zola and Maupassant. Notre-Dame is still on the long road to recovery from the ashes—reenacting Hugo’s own reasons for writing The Hunchback, as it takes many modern-day Quasimodos to preserve the cathedral and watch over Paris.
From the cathedral you can spot a bookshop founded in 1919 by Sylvia Beach, an American expatriate. Her shop, Shakespeare and Company, famously published James Joyce’s Ulysses, , shocking the literary world. Ever since, it has been a haven for writers from across the globe—Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald—until the Nazis forced its closure in 1941.
Another American wanderer, George Whitman, lingered long enough among the growing piles of books to add beds tucked between the shelves for poor and weary writerly souls in exchange for helping with daily chores. This was just in time for the Bohemian winds that swept across the world. Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Brecht, and Miller were among the thousands—both famous and aspiring—who spent nights reading, resting, and dreaming of writing their own opus.
Today, the store has a reading room upstairs, and there is always a literary event or two. You might even stumble upon Jeet Thayil or Guy Gunaratne reading from their own books.
The French will hold on to their books. If you want to discover what they’re reading, go to Shakespeare and Company!
Chronicles 
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