Earlier this week, a couple of my friends and I traveled to Shakespeare and Co. which is a legendary bookstore located in Paris. This quaint shop as founded in 1951 by a man named George Whitman, an American serviceman. Originally, the building was a 16-century monastery near the Notre Dame Cathedral which ironically has a famous novel based there. Whitman based a lot of his business idea off a bookstore that opened in 1919 by a woman named Sylvia Beach. She was also American. There is a tale that Ernest Hemingway himself tried to declare the shop reopened after the liberation of Paris, but it sadly did not. Over the many years that Shakespeare and Co. has been open, many famous writers have stopped by or inhabited the charming place. This includes but is not limited to: Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, and Allen Ginsberg. Back in the day, there were cots made out of tumbleweeds for writers to sleep as they did their work. To pay for this stay, they would work by reading books and leaving short reviews on each. George Whitman named his daughter Sylvia Beach Whitman after the woman who started this journey that he was on. She is now the current known owner of the shop in Paris. When we arrived, I was astounded by all the cute twists and turns of the shop. The entire first floor is for purchasing new and old books as well as other items like tote bags, French and Spanish books, and more. However, when I reached the very narrow stairs to get to the second floor, it was like I was transported to the time of the Lost Generation of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Old books were piled on shelves and tables. Only there to be read not bought. There is a cat famous for living in the store named Aggie. I love cats, so this made my heart smile! There is a special area designated for reading. I wish I could have stayed longer and dived into the pages of Charles Lamb and others. (People are not allowed to take pictures inside, for reasons I do not know. I took some outside!) The book pictured in my hand is a novel based on a murder story in Oklahoma! I love seeing a piece of home in such a far away place.