Shakespeare & Co

When I was in college we had a special lesson on "creative dating" courtesy our Bishop and his wife. As ideas were prattled off one after another I continued to roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all: ice blocking, progressive dinners with a twist...and on...and on... Now don't get me wrong, these can all be well and good, but when that is always what one does it loses its inheirent creativity.

Being naturally outspoken and somewhat contrary, I raised my hand and sweetly said "These are all nice, but sometimes I would just like to be taken to Barnes & Nobel to leaf through books together for the evening." I received a round of applause, literally, from the men in the room and was asked on four dates that week alone--some were creative but not one took me to Barnes & Nobel.

Last night we had the luxury of a babysitter, a rare event since living here. We opted to spend the evening at Shakespeare & Co. A famous english language book store located on Paris' Left Bank. For three hours we wandered through the books stacked floor to ceiling, wall to wall, piled on the floor, strewn across tables, hidden in corners, and spilling out on to the street. While the rest of the world stayed up late to welcome in the new Harry Potter, we became reacquainted with Edith Wharton, Irene Nemerovsky, and others (no, we weren't protesting, we just didn't reserve our copy in time). We dug through books on cinema, street photography, Zola, and Flaubert. We learned who the real Butterball is and what Axel's Castle was, through we might not understand it. We climbed the stairs to the second floor where the shop owner keeps an extra bed in case a weary traveller needs a place to stay. We left just as the store was closing to grab a gyro in the Latin Quarter before lazily walking home along the banks of the Seine.

For me, as I had suggested in college, sifting through the books was the perfect night.