Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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Click here for upcoming events at the Village Voice bookshop. Tom felt the need for a book to read on the plane on Sunday, so we visited the Village Voice bookshop on rue Princesse yesterday. We also peeked through the window next door, a café called Paris Coffee, which is set up like an American diner, and has a menu with items like club sandwiches on it. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go to such a place when in Paris, but to each his own, I guess. The Voice is a welcoming, scholarly and tidy shop with all the bestsellers and much more. The staff member on duty yesterday was Michael Neal, a large, older middle-aged British bookseller with a strong, deadpan sense of humor. Many of his regular customers are French people who are trying to improve their English. With these customers, Michael goes back and forth, first using his flawless French, then switching over to his native English, then back to flawless French again. One young woman who must be a regular was practicing her English on him. He pretended to scold her, saying that she has not been watching a particular show on BBC that he told her to watch. In other words, her accent was bad. She giggled and took it as a joke. Another young woman, an American I think, asked him if he’d recommend any other English-language bookstores in Paris. He blurted out, “Not at all!” I smiled at that one, and he caught my eye from across the store but maintained his deadpan face, so the young American thought he was serious. Then he relented and said “the San Francisco bookstore on rue Monsieur le Prince.” The San Francisco Book Company sells used books, including paperbacks, and has a buy-back policy. So you can buy used paperbacks, read them, take them back to the store which then pays you a little bit of money for them, and then you buy the next batch. I know people who do this. With the thousands (no exaggeration) of books in the apartment where we stay in July and August, the interesting but small collection in the September apartment, and the internet, we have not felt the need to do this paperback exchange thing. There used to be a good bookstore on avenue de l’Opéra called Brentano’s, but they went through a period of decline in recent years, and then closed altogether almost a year ago. Several more small shops sell English language books. Here’s a list of them, but be forewarned, it is out of date because it still lists Brentano’s. Of the ones on this list, we’ve visited Shakespeare & Co., the Abbey bookshop, Galignani, W. H. Smith, the Red Wheelbarrow, Tea and Tattered Pages, and the American University of Paris bookstore, in addition to the Voice and San Francisco. At the American University of Paris bookstore, all we really did was look at the books in the front window, which all seemed to be written by profs at the university. That’s not a bad thing; I highly recommend Richard Pevear’s translation of The Three Musketeers. Richard Pevear teaches Russian literature and translation at the American University of Paris. (To Sanibelians: this book is in the library.) Tom bought Tracy Kidder’s book, Strength in What Remains. On Amazon.com, you can buy this book for $15.60, plus tax, shipping and handling. In the Village Voice bookshop, it costs 26 euros, or $39, tax included. I don’t do so well with trying to read anything serious on a plane. All the discussions surrounding me are too distracting. I cannot block them out. So I read newspapers, magazines, watch the movie, or listen to music on the plane’s sound system or on my Sansa Fuze MP3 player. One of the things I love about the airport at Charles de Gaulle is that often you can find free newspapers in the waiting areas by the gates. Even the expensive International Herald Tribune is there. Normally, it costs 2.50 euros, or $3.75. After our usual hour-long walk in the gorgeous Luxembourg Gardens, we went to dine at L’Abri Cotier on the boulevard Montparnasse one more time. The chef, la patronne, and the server all greeted us warmly, and we were shown to our regular table. I tried their new version of the escargots in profiteroles. The sauce is now a lighter, creole sort of concoction, which is less filling and quite interesting. I told the server that it was like the cuisine of New Orleans. Next was sole meunière for me, and veal chop for Tom. Divine. Delicious. Finally, Tom had his usual rich pain perdu brioché aux poires sauce caramel, and this time the serving was huge. Mon dieu! I shall miss this restaurant very much. We said our farewells for the year, telling la patronne and the server that we’d be back next summer for certain. ← Previous Next →

Friday, September 25, 2009 Highly decorated building on the rue Mouffetard. A double-wattled cassowary, native to Australia, in the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes. The ass at the menagerie. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook.