The Yellow Library

A Literary Map of Paris
(Click to Enlarge)
Click here to see all locations on Google Maps

Aside from anything bookish, I also love everything Parisian so I was excited to put together this literary map of Paris. It wasn't easy - took me an entire day! - but I had fun working on it! From quaint old bookstores to libraries, cafes, museums, 'literary' hotels and even famous author's houses, it's every bibliophile's dream tour of Paris :-) If you're a book lover visiting this most romantic city, this is a great place to start!

How to use the map above: Each literary spot has a star that marks its location on the map. The number corresponds to the description in the list below. Click on the title of any description for more information.

For the locations' complete addresses, click here to see it on Google Maps.

Bookstores and Booksellers

1. Les Bouqinistes

Along the river Seine by the Pont Neuf or the left bank you'll find one of the most iconic spots in Paris - Les Bouqinistes - or the Parisian used and rare booksellers. Stretching for over a mile from Pont Neuf to the Left and the Right bank, these Parisian booksellers have marked the city for over 300 years. Boasting of over 200 independent stalls carrying up to 400,000 new, used, rare and collectible books and magazines, these book stalls are sure to delight any booklover with a truly unique Parisian experience.

2. Shakespeare and Company

Situated at the heart of the city, at the Latin Quarter near the Seine and offering a view of the Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company is a booklover's paradise. A delightful combination of nostalgic charm and modern thought, the bookstore is a haven for Parisians as well as English readers and writers. They have a large collection of English books and a staff who all speak Fluent English and who will be glad to help you find whatever book you are looking for, and then recommend some.

3. Village Voice
The Village Voice is an English-language bookshop in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the heart of literary Paris. Since 1982, we have promoted the books we love, those that seem essential to a better understanding of the world we live in, and have hosted readings by some of the most important contemporary authors.

The Village Voice is an English-language bookshop in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the heart of literary Paris. Since 1982, we have promoted the books we love, those that seem essential to a better understanding of the world we live in, and have hosted readings by some of the most important contemporary authors.

4. Tea and Tattered Pages

A quaint bookstore filled to the brim with mostly English and second hand titles. It may be a little off the beaten track but it's well worth the journey because while you browse you'll be served English tea, scones and carrot cake in a charming tea room.

5. The Red Wheelbarrow

The name of this English bookstore was taken from one of the poems of William Carlos Williams, an American poet of the first half of the 20th century. The Red Wheelbarrow - the bookstore - according to their website THE English bookstore in Paris, is offering an enormous selection of titles in English in a space where every square centimeter is used up for books.

Libraries

6. Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful libraries in the world, it is the repository of all that is published in France. It boasts of over 10 million volumes and manuscripts. Its oval reading room, shown here, is one of the most photographed libraries in the world.

7. American Library in Paris

Established in 1920 as a private non-profit association, the American Library in Paris has grown to become the largest English-language lending library on the European continent. Open to all, the Library serves as a center for literature, learning, culture, and community.

Literary Cafes and Restaurants

8. Les Editeurs

Popular among artists and businessmen alike, Les Editeurs goes to great lengths to describe itself as café, restaurant, library, bar and salon de thé. It is intended for writers – there are more than 5000 books on hand and it has floor-to-ceiling windows through which you can watch the Germanopratin goings-on. Breakfasts and Sunday brunch are big here.

9. Cafe de Flore

The Café de Flore, at the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Rue St. Benoit, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, has long been celebrated for its intellectual clientele. The classic Art Deco interior of all red seating, mahogany and mirrors has changed little since World War II. Like its main rival, Les Deux Magots, it has hosted most of the French intellectuals during the post-war years.

10. Les Deux Magots

Once the rendezvous of the literary and intellectual élite of Paris, Les Deux Magots is now a popular tourist destination. Its historical reputation is derived from the patronage of artists and young writers such as Ernest Hemingway. Other patrons included Albert Camus and Pablo Picasso.

11. Cafe de la Mairie

Where Ernest Hemingwway wrote The Sun also Rises. This was also Henry Miller's favorite Paris cafe where he would sip his morning cafe and look at the "fat belfries" of St-Sulpice, as noted in his classic Tropic of Cancer.

12. The Hemingway Bar

The Hemingway Bar at Ritz, where Hemingway lived for a time, is not only laden with history, it is a genuine cultural treasure trove. Conversations flow around the talented Colin Fieldís original cocktails in the bar's genuine decor, complete with its leather armchairs. Elected Best Bar in the World by Forbes Magazine in 2001, the Hemingway Bar is a unique place where refinement and conviviality exist side by side.

13. Manga Cafe

Decorated in vivid comic strip black, white and red, this is Europe's first and most successful manga cafe serving French manga junkies - the second biggest market outside Japan.

14. Le Fumoir

Popular among artists and businessmen alike, this elegant restaurant boasts of a 3,000 volume candle-lit reading room.

15. Le Cafe-Livre

A charming cafe-bookshop where you can enjoy a drink or browse through any of the thousands of books. Walls lined with volumes, leather armchairs and carefully placed wine bottles all make for a wonderfully quiet place to curl up and read.

Museums and Author's Houses

16. Maison de Victor Hugo

French author Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) lived on the second floor of this building where he wrote most of Les Miserables and many other works. The house, Hutel de Rohan-Guemenee, is the largest on the place des Vosges, and in 1903 it became a museum of his life, with portraits and memorabilia.

17. Mason de Balzac

Home of French novelist Honoré de Balzac. Of the many houses where he lived, this is the only one still standing.

18. Chateau de Monte Cristo

The home and park of Alexandre Dumas. Stroll the grounds and visit the chateau for a glimpse into the writer's world as revealed through paintings, engravings and reproductions.

19. Ernest Hemingway's First Apartment

Ernest Hemingway lived here when he moved to Paris shortly after his marriage. He began a career as a novelist where he wrote The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. While in Paris he also visited Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Both Pound and Stein were to be a very great influence on Hemingway's style of writing.

20. Bust of Antoine de Saint Exupery

See how the author of The Little Prince looked like while taking a leisurely stroll at the Tuileries Gardens.

21. Natalie Clifford Barney's Literary Salon

Natalie Clifford Barney was an American expatriate who opened a literary salon that gathered many literary figures. These included Joyce, TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, F Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote.

22. Musee de la vie Romantique

The museum's collection offers a glimpse into the French writer George Sand's private life, including her furniture, jewels and portraits.

23. Gertrude Stein House

Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France. Her most critically acclaimed work was Three Lives

24. Richard Wright's House

Richard Wright was an African-American author of novels short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid-20th centuries. To escape the growing racial pressures at home, he moved to Paris where he met authors and intellectuals who treated him as a writer first, and black second.

Bars and Theaters

25. Spoken Word Paris

Open mic. Performance poetry. Stand up. Monologue. Stories. Beat poetry. Spoken word. English. French. Your own original texts. Old texts from Rimbaud to Dr Seuss, Beowulf to Gil Scott-Heron. Make the words come alive.

26. Maison de la Poesie

Live poetry performances showcasing the best of contemporary French poets like David Lescot and Leslie Kaplan, and occasionally international ones such as Leeds-born Tony Harrison.

27. Culture Rapide

Watch poets compete against each other by reading original works for judgement. Originated in Chicago, this poetry slamming is in English every other Monday, and in French every Tuesday. Poets come from a hodgepodge of French and English speaking countries including Quebec, Senegal, Congo, Lebanon, and Morocco, and even from Africa, Vietnam and China.

Literary Hotels

28. Hotel Pont Royal

Stay at the Pont Royal, home to a long literary tradition, and immerse yourself in literary and artistic Paris. Camus, Sartre and Joyce checked into this Left Bank hotel, as has García Márquez. It is a few steps away from the literary elite's haunts, the Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots.

29. Hotel D'Alsace (L'Hotel)

This left bank Paris hotel provides the ultimate levels of comfort and a chic ambiance for your city break in Paris, close to a choice of metro stations and within walking distance from elegant shops, boutiques and typical Parisian cafes.

30. Le Pavillion des Lettres

Paris’s new Pavillon des Lettres takes the spirit of literature to heart, and also pays homage to Voltaire himself, along with 25 other writers who were the inspiration for this chic hotel on a quiet street in the Eighth Arrondissement. It boasts 26 rooms each named after a different writer, with quotations from their work stenciled on the walls.

31. Apostrophe Hotel

Designed around a simple idea, the Apostrophe hotel tells a story around traces of human intelligence around writing in all its forms. It is filled with letters and colors. In the category of “Balneo rooms” in the Apostrophe Hotel, the alphabet room calls for reading and literature in all its forms.

Literary Festivals

32. Paris en Toute Lettres
This is Paris' annual literary festival where diverse fiction is showcased in readings, performances, workshops, concerts and projections by authors, actors and musicians.

In my last 2 decades of reading and collecting, some books just stayed with me throughout the years long after I have read them. They are the ones that are not just wildly entertaining but also strike a chord within all of us and resonate with the truth. They demonstrate the strength of the human spirit and inspire us to live life to the fullest. Here is the list of the most beautiful and unforgettable books I have ever read. I hope someday you will get to read them too! (Click on any title for more information.)

1. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
One of the most gripping sagas I have ever read, Pillars of the Earth is a breathtaking concoction of princes, princesses, castles, love, war, and revenge. Set in medieval England, it is so meticulously researched that Follett was able to blend fact and fiction to weave a compelling story that is impossible to put down.

2. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Get lost in the haunting world of pre-war Japan where geishas flourished, whose beauty regimen were practiced religiously to beguile the most powerful of men, whose charm and cunning were made into an art, and for whom true love was never an option. An amazing story of survival and the search for true love.

3. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Based on the true story of The Lost Woman of San Nicolas, this book is an amazing story of survival, hope and the strength of the human spirit.

4. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
One of the most inspiring books I have ever read, Life of Pi won the Man Booker Prize in 2002.

5. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
More than eighty years since Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer Price for The Good Earth in 1932 the book is still as compelling and poignant today as it was then.

6. 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper
A gripping true story about a man who met a terrible accident, was pronounced dead, went to heaven, and came back to life after 90 minutes. In those minutes he had a glimpse of heaven in all its glory which he says no words on earth can aptly describe.

7. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
A book that is so strikingly simple, elegant, beautiful, and yet so powerful it resonates with the truth. Its purity is what makes it profound and it never fails to strike a chord within each one of us, young and old alike.

8. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
A love story shrouded in mystery. It is a gripping read with an atmosphere bordering on gothic.

9. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Considered to be one of the first mystery novels ever written, The Woman in White was the first book to feature many of the elements we find in many thrillers today such as the "white lady", domestic murder for money, sprawling manors in the English countryside, etc. Collins narrates the story as several characters in an epistolary style that is very genuine and creative!

10. Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The legendary persona of the ultimate detective, Sherlock Holmes has no need for any further explanation.