Shakespeare and Company – Bookstore
Many years ago, I went with my wife to Paris in the beginning of December, to see the city in its Christmas attire. I had booked a little hotel in a townhouse, just opposite the river from the Notre Dame cathedral. This was my first time in Paris, and I did not yet know my way about the city. The first thing I asked the people in the reception, is where to find the used bookstore “Shakespeare and Company”, where Ernst Hemingway haunted dutifully during his time in Paris in the twenties. I cared less to see the Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower. The receptionist smiled kindly at my question and told me to just stand outside the hotel and turn left up the street and walk a hundred meters, which would take me to the small square where the bookstore was. My face turned into one giant half-moon smile. I could not believe my luck. I had read about this legendary place often, where great writers used to meet up to talk about literature and compare their views about writing and poetry. This included great authors like Ernest Hemingway, Andre Gide, Anais Nin, Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein and Paul Valery, to name a few. The atmosphere in the bookshop was special. It was a temple of sorts, used books in every corner of the shop, beds for writers and everything seemed designed to worship the written word. Artists and writers could stay there for free, as long as they worked in the shop during their stay. But the main point of me remembering this bookstore is, that it was a venue for writers to gather together and discuss their writing. Now, a hundred years later, the venue for writers to meet up has become a digital one and Linked-IN serves this purpose for me. I am glad to be here, to connect with so many other writers and to correspond with them, about writing and literature. I read as many posts from other writers as I can manage, and it fills me with inspiration and thoughts. God bless.
A.G. Munson
