CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/22/2016

Shakespeare and Company, Paris

"delectable eye candy for lovers of books and reading.... an exuberant celebration of a bookstore"
-- Publishers Weekly

Question: Can an overstuffed, underfunded, independent overseas bookstore be glamorous? Answer: Yes. Read the blueprint in Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart, the magnificent first illustrated history of the legendary Paris institution-cum-literary-flophouse. Drawn from a century's worth of never-before-seen archives, with more than 200 color reproductions, fascinating ephemera and original writing by Jeanette Winterson, Nathan Englander, Ethan Hawke, Ian Rankin and many more, this book is already the year's best known antidote to internet-age, consumer-culture malaise. "I created this bookstore like a man would write a novel," founder George Whitman is quoted, "building each room like a chapter, and I like people to open the door the way they open a book, a book that leads into a magic world in their imaginations." Read Jeanette Winterson's Foreword on LitHub and Publishers Weekly's Starred Review. Pictured here, "Tumbleweeds" reading in the library, where benches double as beds at night, and a signed photograph from James Baldwin.