Last week saw the death of George Whitman, legendary founder of the Parisian bookshop Shakespeare and Company. Tim Martin examines the enduring appeal of the place Beckett and Ginsberg hung out in the Telegraph.
From the article...
Like much of contemporary Paris, Shakespeare and Co is something of a heritage industry, cheerfully selling an idea of itself to customers eager for a glimpse into the past. You can get your purchases stamped with the Shakespeare logo at the checkout, browse a selection of books about the bookshop and take a look at the latest clutch of hipsterish American twentysomethings living out the perennial literary fantasy by sleeping in the library upstairs.
Things have changed somewhat in the shop over the past decade, since Whitman bowed out from the daily running of the business in 2006 and put his daughter Sylvia in charge. Under her direction, Shakespeare’s has made its way into the modern age: it continues to put up its quota of six “tumbleweed” writers, for whom the criteria of admission remain to write a page-long autobiography and do a couple of hours on the shopfloor each day, but some time ago it took the controversial step of installing credit card machines and a telephone, taking good care of its cashbox, ordering in regular consignments of hip American paperbacks and adjusting its prices to reflect the contemporary realities of bookselling.
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