Not Shakespeare & Co

October 12, 2009 10:26 AM

Looking for an independent bookshop in Paris.

Ideally, you've been to the London Review Bookshop in London. Or maybe to St. Mark's in NY or Goulard in Aix. If you haven't, I'm looking for a smallish independent bookshop that (almost) doesn't sell crowd pleasers and manages to display prominently books like The Complete Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal or the new biography of Max Weber. The type of bookshop that already stocked Bolaño before the hype or the sorts of books that make it into the Hesperus Classics collection. Except that it would exclusively sell books in the french language. What would be the Parisian equivalent?

posted by lucia__is__dada to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

La Hune on Boul St-G. is the obvious first option, though I think the librairie des Abbesses in Montmartre may fit your specifics better.
posted by holgate at 10:53 AM on October 12

I am a fan of Compagnie, on the rue des Écoles (5e), which has a good selection of classic literature, world literature in French translation, and an extensive human sciences collection in the basement. This summer I was pleased to find Comme un roman, in the Marché des enfants rouges (rue de Bretagne, 3e). For a small chain, L'arbre à lettres isn't bad, and if you find yourself near Censier, you can poke your head into l'Arbre du Voyageur (55, rue Mouffetard).
posted by brianogilvie at 2:08 PM on October 12

Thanks!
posted by lucia__is__dada at 3:23 AM on October 14