World’s Largest Bookstore Shuts Down for the Olympics

Photo by Barry Frangipane

It has been called the only bookstore to have a river run through it. As early as 1559 there were royal decrees attempting to shut down these booksellers along the banks of the Seine in Paris. But the desire for knowledge has always won out. By 1620 there were already eighty of the mobile bookstalls in downtown Paris. It wasn’t until 1859 that the “Bouquinistes” would be permitted to put their dark green boxes in a fixed location on the sidewalks along the river. There a...