A most interesting man whom I have never met...

In 1919, a woman named Sylvia Beach from Salem, Massachusetts, opened a bookstore in Paris, France at 8 rue Dupuytern. The name of the bookstore was Shakespeare and Company. Two years later, she moved the store to the rue de L'Odeon, where it became the place to hang out for writers such as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and many others. The store remained opened until December, 1941, when, during the Nazi Occupation of Paris, a German officer wanted a book that belonged to Sylvia. She refused to hand it over. When he became angry and left, she knew he would return in force and take it from her. She gathered her friends, they emptied the bookstore, and she closed it that day, never knowing that some day in the future, it would reopen in a different location, by a different owner, but still in Paris.

Fast Forward to 1945 -

At the end of World War II, a soldier named George Whitman, found himself not wanting to return to the United States. So he stayed in Paris, attending school at the Sorbonne. At the end of his journey through the Sorbonne, he had acquired many books written in English. He purchased a small building across from Notre Dame de Paris for the sum of $500. He lived in the small apartment above the store, and opened it as the reborn Shakespeare and Company. Today, the building is worth over five million dollars.

George Whitman is now in his mid-nineties, and

believes he is living in a novel. I had the pleasure of

seeing George in 2006, sitting in front of the

bookstore, reading, with a huge stack of books beside

him. I did not interrupt him, but I did take a picture of

him. He is sitting in front of his manifesto.

George has a daughter who is in her mid-twenties

and who currently runs the bookstore. He named her

after the original owner, Sylvia Beach Whitman.

Every time we have the pleasure of visiting Paris, we make a point of stopping by the

bookstore. While George no longer lives above the store, the apartment has been set up to

accommodate several writers, should they need a place to stay while they write.

I cannot imagine George sitting in front of his store with an e-book in his lap. The thought

is almost obscene. A book has a personality all its own, but it changes with each reader. Such

is the world of George Whitman, who says that the most interesting characters he ever met

were on the pages of a book. All I can say, George, is may your novel never end!