While in Paris, why not visit a bookstore?

Well. Apparently, in the shadow of Notre Dam, you can find one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. The Paris bookstore is featured (along with some other pretty amazing places) in this article from Flavorwire: The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World.

It's called Shakespeare & Company. 
And I haven't been yet, but it looks amaaaazing in the photo. So I'm adding it to my 'must visit while in Paris' list. How can you not go visit a place that uses the word 'intelligentsia'...oui?

Here's a little history:

Shakespeare and Company was opened by George Whitman in August 1951. George found himself in Paris after the Second World War, not wanting to return to America straight away. He enrolled at the Sorbonne to improve his French and found a small hotel room on Boulevard St Michel. During his studies he amassed a large collection of English books and used his room as a library and bookstore. It was only after a conversation with his friend Lawrence Ferlinghetti that George took seriously the notion of opening a bookstore in Paris. So, in 1951 he managed to acquire a small apartment opposite Notre-Dame de Paris, which was then converted into the front of Shakespeare and Company.

Set in the heart of Paris on the Left Bank opposite Notre-Dame, Shakespeare and Company has grown from a bookstore into an institution. It is situated in the Latin quarter which for centuries has been the centre of Parisian creativity and intelligentsia. Since 1951 the bookstore has stubbornly kept its utopian ideals in a changing...[continue reading on Facebook]