Legendary bookstores

[Black Swan]

This is a great bookstore in Paris called "Un Regard Moderne" located where?
10 rue Gît-Le-Coeur.

Yes, by the Beat Hotel, a few doors down.
The owner has been there for 20 years and has been a librarian for 40 years. His name is Paul Noël and he mainly sells American litterature and the Beats.
Really cooool.

 

[Mark73]

My, my, that looks like a really cool bookstore. Love the way it looks from the outside, now I want to visit the inside.

Got to see more of France in anyway.

Btw, you make a fine mother/daughter couple, I mean lovely ;-)

 

[Ambreen]

That wasn't the good moment to take photos, I'm having allergy on the eyes... but I couldn't say no to you. :D

The owner is called Jacques Noël.

The owner has been there for 20 years and has been a librarian for 40 years. His name is Paul Noël and he mainly sells American litterature and the Beats

You forgot to mention the huge amount of porno books, mags and comics. They're on the right side, next time I'll show you them. :D

Yes Mark, that's a cool book store but extremely cramped, not recommended at all for people suffering from claustrophobia : you feel like an elephant in a china shop. And the owner isn't talkative. I first went there last winter because I had a paper to write on a bookstore for a course (and I chose this one because I read on the net that Patti Smith goes there each time she's in Paris) and it turned out to be quite difficult to make him talk... he first let me on the right side, among the said porno books, because he was busy with clients, and I felt that he wasn't happy at the perspective of being interviewed...

I prefer this one, taken in the café near "Shakespeare & Company" (don't remember its name) :

 

[Mark73]

I was going to ask about the yellow Spermanga book on the left photo #1 side.

I lived on 21 square meters together with a girlfriend, so I think I can handle small places. You hear me scream "I can't breathe! I gotta get outta here!" while I grab the best porn stuff, then run out of the store and jump into the Metro.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Those are very nice photos of both of you. Next time, go nude.

 

[Ponder]

I'll send you a few nudes, uncle.

 

[Black Swan]

Now, be kind, you better crop those pictures, I mean the width...:eek:

 

[Ambreen]

I found some pictures of the owner and of the inside :
http://www.gonzai.com/sites/default/files/regard_moderne__13_bis.gif
http://www.gonzai.com/sites/default/files/regard_moderne__6_bis.gif
http://a9.idata.over-blog.com/0/24/65/72/jacquesnoel_400.jpg
http://lepoignardsubtil.hautetfort.com/media/00/00/3124401.jpg

Here is how it looks when closed :
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/43/78186244_4c5f0e20cc.jpg
The first time I went there, I didn't check the opening hours and arrived too early. It was closed and I didn't notice it, believing the book covers were posters stick on the wall (hahaha).

 

[Mark73]

A little bit chaotic... does the owner know where's what in his store?

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Ambreen, did you take those photos? If so they are very well done. Thank you.

 

[Ambreen]

No, I found them on the web. Black Swan wanted to take some pictures from him and from the inside but he refused. He is very reserved, not the kind of man you imagine selling porn books.

A little bit chaotic... does the owner know where's what in his store?

Sure. The first time, I observed him and saw how quickly he was able to find the books people were asking for.

 

[Ponder]

'Books are extraordinary'

Amazing documentary on Shakespeare & Company

5 parts

Enjoy!

[This video is unavailable.]

 

[esart]

it's no longer there, but dutton's was where i used to buy all my bukowski and john fante books. it was in north hollywood on laurel canyon.

 

[bospress.net]

Dutton's also was one of the FEW bookstores that paid in advance for small press books.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

Shame that Dutton's is no longer around. I can smell the books just from the photograph.

 

[beatbrad71]

Is it too obvious to say City Lights in San Francisco - what a shop that is, loved the poetry section upstairs and got a fair few pieces up there, or Strand in NYC. I remember going in there about 2000 and buying Septuagenarian Stew whilst wearing a Buk t-shirt and the assistant behind the counter making some wise-ass remark about now having the book to accompany the t-shirt... I just thought what a bitch, what does she know? Anyway, on a slightly smaller scale I live in Brighton in the UK and can definitely recommend the terribly named Brighton Books. It's got a fair bit of stock but in my opinion the staff are knowledgable and friendly and they got a lot of rare Buk stuff. If anyone wants to check it out, the address is 18 Kensington Gardens.

 

[the only good poet]

i used to patronise this place. you could hear pigeons in the back.
i can see it was given a lick of paint.

Close to the entrance gates of Osterley Park is this wonderful and eccentric little second-hand bookshop.
The shop's tagline, "the shop that has fans, not customers" seems very appropriate: the interior is cramped and chaotic, and many of the shelves are lined two-deep with books, making this a place to rummage rather than browse. But that's part of the charm, and also makes it possible to find the odd bargain, hidden away (as I did).
They also sell an extensive line of reasonably-priced greetings cards, a selection of small antiques - and their own honey. Eclectic indeed. The staff are helpful in a nice, laid-back sort of way.
Eagled-eyed visitors will spot of the unusual design of the building: from 1884 until 1934 this was "Osterley Park and Spring Grove' station on the District Line, until replaced by the present Osterley station, half a mile away. The bricked-up access to the footbridge can be seen at the back of the shop, and the platforms are still in place
http://www.qype.co.uk/place/171157-Osterley-Bookshop-London

 

[justin grimbol]

GODFATHERS in astoria, oregon.

i love god fathers books. there this odd community that hangs out there---old sailormen, war vets, mixed in with this really crazed group of rowdy teenagers. i spend my holidays with this group. the owner of the book store also ownes a place called the chowder house. this last thankgiving we all gathered there and charley cooked us a huge feast. theres a guy named helmet he let feast with us. helmets an old homless guy charley lets sleep in the doorway of the bookstore. everyone there loves bukowski. there's a plack honoring old buk as the stores most shoplifted author. larry brown is also very popular there. anyway. if you are ever in the north west, stop by. its a real welcoming crowd---no snobs. charley cooks easily the best clam chowder i have ever had.

 

[Digney in Burnaby]

Came across a photo of the "either/or" bookstore in Hermosa Beach, CA in a magazine yesterday. Shindig! Quarterly no. 1 and a story on The Insomniac Cafe in Hermosa Beach. Also will add an ad from Open City for "either/or". Scaling back hourly wages from now to then I think I'd have to work 5 hours to afford Crucifix. I have spent that much on a single book but....

Of course I spent $13 on the magazine. Hey, The Electric Prunes were on the cover. And I was in the big box store to buy More Notes by Buk. The funny car nostalgia mag purchase wasn't an impulse buy either. Yeah, right.

 

[Rekrab]

Godfathers in Astoria -- I never heard of it, but it sounds great. I may get up there if I ever have a car I can leave town in.

Has anyone mentioned Acres of Books in Long Beach, California? It closed a while back. I went there all the time when I was in college. Bought many great old books (late 1700s - mid 1800s) for 50 cents or a dollar each. The place was loaded, tens of thousands of used books on rickety shelves that went up, up, up. A cavernous back room with even more books. I have an end board from one of their shelves in my basement, with old Sci-Fi covers stapled to it, that a friend mailed me after they closed. I still have a few books from there, with the store's rubber stamp on the endpaper. You could find books that they'd had since the 1920s, with decades old prices in them. Sometimes the two old guys that ran it would sell at those prices, sometimes they'd say "No, no, no, not this one" and take it away, and you'd never see that book again.

 

[Ponder]

Documentary on Shakespeare & Company

Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man

George passed away last december. He was 98.


Paris mourns George Whitman, founder of the famed bookstore Shakespeare and Company


http://diedandyet.com/2011/12/15/pa...-the-famed-bookstore-shakespeare-and-company/