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Bookstores

Bookstores are places where forward-thinking ideas become reality. Like the idea of John Newbery, who in the 18th century published the first books for very young readers for his London bookstore, becoming one of the pioneers of modern children’s literature.

It was a forward-thinking idea that fired Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier to found the bookstore ‘Shakespeare and Company’ in Paris in 1919. Visited frequently by major figures on the French literary scene, it soon became a cultural hub.

Likewise, the National Memorial African Bookstore was another unique enterprise of its kind. Founded in Harlem by Lewis H. Michaux in 1939, it became a reference point for students, intellectuals, writers and artists of the Civil Rights Movement, all fervent supporters of the collective and political dimension of books and reading.

Quintessential places for meeting and exchange, bookstores bring together people with a common passion: readers of different generations, assisted by booksellers who are always on hand to help customers to find what they are looking for, but also eager to broaden their horizons, investigate new avenues, and ask the big questions that every human community has posed down the ages.