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Having written four books of her own, author Gillian Harvey explores the reasons why Englishspeaking expats set up bookshops in France
For many bibliophiles, the idea of running a bookshop is a long-held dream. To work in the world of books, read to your heart’s content, recommend your favourites and get to know like-minded customers sounds idyllic. Others may dream of moving to France and embracing a different way of life.
But what of those who want to combine the two, and opt to open English-language bookshops in a French setting? Does merging two dreams work? Is there sufficient demand? And in these days of internet shopping, do people flock to bookshops the way they used to? I spoke to the
people behind three thriving bookshops doing just that to discover what it’s like to live two dreams at once.
THE RED WHEELBARROW, PARIS
When Penelope Fletcher moved to Paris in 1990, she was already an experienced bookseller. In fact, she’d opened her own bookstore at the age of 19: “I grew up on Hornby Island on the west coast of Canada – a really special place, three islands from Vancouver,” she says. “When I was 19, I decided to open a second-hand bookstore while at college.”
A chance comment by a teacher may even have sparked a future ambition. “One of my teachers at the time said: ‘are you a second Sylvia Beach?’ Sylvia was an American woman who had opened a bookshop in Paris in 1919 and is famous for having published Ulysses by James Joyce – it kind of stuck with me. I wasn’t sure who she was at the time, but I found out. Maybe that’s why I ended up here!” says Penelope.
Years later, she made her own move to Paris from Montreal, where she was working as a bookseller. “I arrived in France on a one-way-ticket with just 200 French francs in my back pocket,” she says.
“Near the Luxembourg gardens, the two bookshops carry on Sylvia Beach’s bookselling legacy in the Latin Quarter”
She soon found a job at the famous Brentano’s bookshop on Avenue de l’Opéra and settled in the city. And in the 11 years that preceded the opening of The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore, she worked in two Paris bookshops, became an English teacher, married a jazz musician, and had three children.
Being married to a jazz musician made financial stability a goal. So, in 2001, when her youngest child was three, Penelope decided to work with her strengths and opened her own independent bookshop in the city.
The original Red Wh
