Time Was Soft There

"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...