“Some bookstores are filled with stories
both inside and outside the bindings. These are places of
sanctuary, even redemption—and Jeremy Mercer has found
both amid the stacks of Shakespeare & Co.”
—Paul Collins, author of Sixpence House: Lost in
a Town of Books
In a small square on the left bank of the
Seine, the door to a green-fronted bookshop beckoned....
With gangsters on his tail and his meager
savings in hand, crime reporter Jeremy Mercer fled Canada
in 1999 and ended up in Paris. Broke and almost homeless,
he found himself invited to a tea party amongst the riffraff
of the timeless Left Bank fantasy known as Shakespeare &
Co. In its present incarnation, Shakespeare & Co. has
become a destination for writers and readers the world over,
trying to reclaim the lost world of literary Paris in the
1920s. Having been inspired by Sylvia Beach’s original store,
the present owner, George Whitman, invites writers who are
down and out in Paris to live and dream amid the bookshelves
in return for work. Jeremy Mercer tumbled into this literary
rabbit hole and found a life of camaraderie with the other
eccentric residents, and became, for a time, George Whitman’s
confidante and right-hand man.
Time Was Soft There is one of the
great stories of bohemian Paris and recalls the work of many
writers who were bewitched by the City of Light in their youth.
Jeremy’s comrades include Simon, the eccentric British poet
who refuses to give up his bed in the antiquarian book room,
beautiful blonde Pia, who contributes the elegant spirit of
Parisian couture to the store, the handsome American Kurt,
who flirts with beautiful women looking for copies of Tropic
of Cancer, and George himself, the man who holds the key
to it all. As Time Was Soft There winds in and around
the streets of Paris, the staff fall in and out of love, straighten
bookshelves, host tea parties, drink in the more down-at-the-heels
cafés, sell a few books, and help George find a way
to keep his endangered bookstore open. Spend a few days with
Jeremy Mercer at 37 Rue de la Bucherie, and discover the bohemian
world of Paris that still bustles in the shadow of Notre Dame.
Jeremy Mercer was formerly a journalist
for the Ottowa Citizen. He is the author of two crime
books and a founder of Kilometer Zero, a cult literary
magazine currently being published out of Shakespeare &
Co.
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