Get Stamped

I picked up a used copy of J.D. Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey” at a book store here in town. The page inside the front cover was stamped with Shakespeare and Company Kilometer Zero Paris.

A quick internet search took me literally to Kilometer Zero in Paris. “Kilometre Zero” is considered the official center of Paris; the geographic point from which all destinations in the Hexagon are measured.

Next to the cathedral Notre Dame sits the Shakespeare & Company bookstore. Founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919,it became a haven for writers like Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein in the years prior to World War II. The bookstore was closed by the Nazis in 1940, but was reopened by George Whitman in 1951.

Today Shakespeare and Company stocks over 80,000 titles. Each book, whether used or new, leaves the store with the identifying stamp.