Bookshops of Paris
The Red Wheelbarrow
9 & 11 rue de Medicis (next to the Luxembourg Gardens)
An excellent English language bookshop with events and readings. You will find all the new publications and all the classics. There is now a sister (children’s) bookshop two doors down. Because this is France, in between them both is a very sinister looking far-right bookshop.
Opening hours are somewhat arbitrary. It has been open when it said it was closed (happy me) and vice versa (not so happy me).
Penelope and her staff are all very well read and will be happy to recommend your next few books.
UPDATE: The far right bookshop has finally left and The Red Wheelbarrow is now three shops!
San Francisco Books Co.
17 rue Monsieur le Prince
Down the road from the Red Wheelbarrow is a dream of a second-hand English language bookshop. Books are piled high, and treasures are to be found in every section. Hours of happy exploring.
FNAC
Various Locations
The FNAC chain is a French entertainment empire set up by a former bodyguard for Trotsky, who had to flee the Gestapo in 1942 for too much anti-fascist street fighting. You can buy the latest book by a superstar French intellectual as well as an Apple Mac Pro and all your Christmas cards. Books are rigorously alphabetised and categorised and the staff will be (just about) happy to help you find something. Much like Tiffany’s for Holly Golightly, you feel like nothing bad could happen as long as FNAC is still standing.
The Abbey Bookshop
29 Rue de la Parcheminerie
Another expat institution in the heart of the Latin Quarter. This Canadian bookshop sells all English language books – new, used and rare. They also host events, a book club and sometimes a party. Well worth the visit for the friendly welcome.
Smith and Sons
248 Rue de Rivoli
If you need Waterstones-sur-Seine, it is this. It has all the newly published English language books and English sweets, tea and marmite. Their magazine section is superb and will never let you down. It is often overrun with tourists but very useful if you are in a rush to get the latest Hello magazine and a crunchie bar.
Librairie Galignani
224 Rue de Rivoli
This must be the most beautiful bookshop in Paris. It is certainly the oldest English language bookshop on the continent having been set up in 1801. Mentioned in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, it still has a very 19th century atmosphere. It is actually three bookshops, French, Art and English and treasures abound in all three.
The Book Market
Parc George Brassens
The open-air book market in the 15th is on every weekend in the old horse market (and slaughterhouse) of what is now the very pleasant Parc George Brassens. You will find piles of 18th century books, boxes of postcards and old letters, cassoulet-stained 19th century cookbooks, 1930s naughty magazines, falling apart Tintins and anything else your bibliophile heart might desire. The café opposite, Au Bon Coin, is perfect for enjoying a coffee while you admire your finds and earwig on book dealer gossip.
It is a quick walk from Porte de Vanves, so a visit can be paired with a nose around the Vanves Flea Market. A perfect Paris Sunday morning.
The Bouquinistes
Along the Seine
These green boxes filled with paperbacks and postcards are a Parisian institution. Starting as moveable boxes selling cheap paperbacks, newspapers and any other printed material (legal or otherwise) that Parisians were desperate to get their hands on. Traders were given permission to set up these permanent boxes in 1752. Since then, they have resisted all attempts to tidy up the riverside making the Seine, as a journalist memorably put it, the only river that runs between two bookshelves. They remain firmly ensconced in Parisian cultural life, and neither Baron Haussmann nor the 2024 Olympic committee were successful in removing them, even temporarily.
Numbers of booksellers fluctuates between 200 and 300, selling out of 900 green boxes.
It is a particular Parisian pleasure to walk along the riverside peeking into these green boxes on a fresh spring day.
