Literary Haven on Paris's Left Bank

Perhaps the most well-known independent bookstore in the world, the Shakespeare & Company store on Paris' left bank was opened in 1951 and has since then been a mecca for writers and literature lovers. Aspiring writers can sleep free of charge in the shop's tucked away beds in exchange for helping around the shop, reading one book each day and writing a short autobiography for the archives. Shakespeare & Company is exceptionally proud of its heritage and rightly so: Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin and Zadie Smith all visited or stayed at the store, and it was the first place to publish James Joyce's Ulysses when nobody else would. When you visit nowadays, take your time browsing the modern titles and second-hand books which are piled in a chaotic fashion in every crevice of the store, or enjoy a drink and snack in the bookstore café next door, where the menu is predominantly vegetarian.