Stories of Kindness from Around the World

How A Bookstore Can Change Your Life


--by JZ, posted Mar 4, 2008

[by Jeremy Mercer, Ode, Nov 2007]

One of the more romantic literary notions is that a book can change a person’s life. Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford, for instance, claims Walker Percy’s novel The Moviegoer made Ford the author he is today. Or a book can have more immediate consequences for people, such as my grade-school friend who read My Side of the Mountain and promptly ran away from home with nothing but a penknife and a ball of twine.

If a book can change your life, a bookstore can utterly transform it. In my case, I found one, or perhaps it found me, at a critical juncture when I was turning my back on everything I had known.

It was a damp January day in 2000 when I discovered the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris. I had left my home in Canada a month earlier, having burned out in my job as a newspaper reporter. I was approaching my 29th birthday, had little money and even less idea what to do with myself.

When I saw the bookstore, just across the Seine river from Notre Dame cathedral, I went in to look for a used paperback. I found much more. Shakespeare and Company turned out to be a surreal cross between a left-wing bookstore and a utopian commune. The owner, George Whitman, practises a type of simple Marxism and founded his store on the philosophy of “Give what you can; take what you need.” When the store opened in 1951, he installed a bed among the shelves and invited people to stay free in return for helping around the shop and reading a book a day.

When I arrived, Whitman had added another dozen beds. He says 40,000 people—more than the population of his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, when he grew up in the 1920s—have slept at Shakespeare and Company. Notable guests include Allen Ginsberg, John Denver and Lawrence Durrell. That wet January, with nothing to lose, I packed up my suitcase and moved in.

For five months, I lived among those books. I had eclectic travellers and artists as roommates, the Latin Quarter as my front yard, and, most vitally, Whitman as my mentor. He told me what to read, showed me the richness of a simple lifestyle and taught me to love at least something in every person who walked into that bookstore. When I finally left, I was a different man with different dreams. I would never return to the stressful hours and empty consumerism of my previous life.

Whitman turns 94 this year and he is still the soul of Shakespeare and Company. There has been a parade of tributes, most recently his designation as “Officier des Arts et Lettres” from the French Ministry of Culture. However his true legacy is the thousands of people like me, people whose lives have been changed by his quixotic philosophy and who carry it with them.

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Readers Comments

dewolfe wrote: What a wonderful story and man! I wish so much that I would meet this man and those like him. That was truly a remarkable soul you had the experience of encountering. What an honor!
lOVEBUG wrote: I have come to appoint in my life, were I feel there are no accidents in life. I would consider it an honor to shake your mentors hand. I used to feel cheated in life because I do not remember one person who taught me to live a simple life, give what you can and take what you need, and always look for the good in every person you meet. For me it took many strangers taking moments of of their time. It took me a life time to see it, but I did see. Thank you for taking time to share your mentor with me. God Bless
cabbage wrote: Wow....that is amazing. I have been to the Shakespeare and Co. store in Berkeley, but don't know if it's there anymore.
Lucky you, and thanks for sharing!
sanserif wrote: This is one of the most inspiring stories i read in recent times. May a time, I have wondered about the "futility" of chasing our dreams at the cost of happiness. You are so lucky to have had such an enriching experience. Thank you so much for sharing! Mr.Whitman is certainly my hero of the day. And you too deserve a salute! God bless you!
Jamie wrote: Wow, how amazing!

I have to say that especially awe-inspiring is how long he has kept it going. Paris is a big city, and I'm sure he's had his share of troubles, thefts, and etc., but he never gave up on his wonderful shop. I'm sure that many people advised him to do something with more material gain, but he didn't.

An amazing person - and a very well-written story, if I might add. =)
Smitha wrote: Wow, this story is really very inspiring.
You cannot denay a person from his experince. We learn, we experience and we change. Good you had Mr Whiteman to change your life. Thanks for sharing this nice persons views about life. Its soo true and so beautiful. God Bless!
Emily wrote: What a pleasure to read your beautifully written story. Thankyou. It's a great philosophy Whitman has... I liked your reference to "My Side of the Mountain" which has probably inspired many children to try and run away! It is an absolute classic.
SeaFoam wrote: Fantastic! Books have souls and knowingly or unknowingly, Whitman set up shop for the books and those questing souls destined to find their answers in the pages of a book or on his cot.
athens wrote: What a life changing experience!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Destination Infinity wrote: Interesting and rare experience indeed. Quite Lucky to live in a book store. It is because of people like Whitman that the world is still able to hold on and let people live in harmony.

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