The Book Lover's Guide to Paris: Les Deux Magots

The Book Lover's Guide to Paris

Secret # 2

This weekend my lovely brother and sister came to visit  me in Paris, and top of my "To Do" list was going to the famous "Les Deux Magots" Café on the Boulevard St. Germain. The street is the crowning glory of Baron Haussmann's restructuring of Paris' Left Bank. Famous from the 1930s for its flowering café culture, bars and nightclubs have blinked merrily along the boulevard every night, until its heyday in the 1960s. 

             

Becoming the centre of Existentialist thought, Jean-Paul Sartre famously frequented "Les Deux Magots" with Simone de Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus et al. in tow. It was here that Picasso met his muse, and philosophers, authors and musicians all found their intellectual and spiritual home, spilling over into "Café de Flore" next door. 

I feel that the café can and will survive on reputation alone, so it was without embarrassment that the waiter told us that first thing on the weekend they had no 'pain aux raisins' or 'pain au chocolat' left. We made do with warm baguette and some nice toasted brioche but expect a small coffee to set you back €5.60! The atmosphere was nice, but unless you are keen on the authors in whose reputation "Les Deux Magots" basks, I'd take your custom elsewhere. If you are a die-hard fan, there is a gift shop downstairs with "Les Deux Magots" branded mugs, plates, notebooks etc.

"Les Deux Magots" is named for the two Chinese figurines who sit proudly inside.

 

If I returned, I'd be tempted to try Café de Flore next door - for now I'm content to soak up the culture and the history created by these literary icons as I stroll by.

Book Lover's Guide to Paris

I'm a Londoner, born and bred, and completely in love with my city. However, my recent move to Paris has given me a thousand new streets to explore, which I seem to patter down feeling as though I'm the first to set foot upon the time-worn pavés beneath my feet.

Despite this outrageous belief that I must be the first to discover a monument, café or shop - I was brought to a sharp realisation that I tread the same roads as millions before me when I happened across "Les Deux Magots" and the "Café de Flore" on the Boulevard St. Germain. No, I was not the first to admire the cute little brasseries sat alongside this Haussmannian left-bank avenue - Salvador Dalí, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Ernest Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, André Breton and Verlaine had all sat, mused, drank, pondered and yes, walked these streets before me. I felt a chill of excitement, and practically waltzed home, determined to unearth Paris' other literary gems. When I uncover them, I'll share them here in a series called:

The Book Lover's Guide to Paris

Secret # 1 

1) The Shakespeare & Company Bookshop

I felt a complete sense of wonder the first time I happened upon this bookstore by The Seine, with its fairy lights strung up outside, blinking invitingly. I'm sure it's designed so that each new customer feels like an undiscovered genius, as you are invited to use the upright piano, typewriters and desks in the rickety upstairs rooms. I sat down to a typewriter without paper or ribbon, tapped uselessly at the keys, and felt like Jack Kerouac. The bookstore is stocked with classics, with 'The Great Gatsby' being one of their best selling novels. The staff are all English speaking, and have suitably romantic stories - returning to Paris after spending a year here & hoping never to leave. 

     

They hold events in the evenings and a tea party every Sunday. You'll have to arrive early as this bookstore is one of Paris' worst kept secrets, and on the evening I tried to attend it was completely filled. The Wikipedia page does a great job of explaining its origins & some of the shop's most distinguished visitors. The secret to getting a coveted job here is apparently a lot of volunteering at the shop & a big sprinkling of luck. Some sleep in the rooms above, and George Whitman, the original owner of this incarnation of the shop reckoned that as many as 40,000 have rested their heads here over the years.*

It is definitely worth a visit!

You'll find it here - nearest Metro is Saint-Michel, nearest RER is Saint-Michel Notre-Dame

*(according to Mercer writing for the Guardian)