Bookstore Bits

Shakespeare and Company 
  This storied bookshop is in Paris, not England, and Shakespeare never visited it. There are lineups to get in, however, and it has been around for a long time. A recent article in The Economist wondered why it is so popular: "What the World’s Most Famous Bookshop Reveals About Culture: Shakespeare and Company in Paris is Turning 75. Is its Success Replicable?", Aug. 27, 2026
   Probably not, to answer the question posed in that title. Many people  show up because it is on the left bank of the Seine. Myth has something to do with it since there was an earlier Shakespeare and Company and the American owner of that shop had many famous friends, like Hemingway. It also helps that the shop has "hundreds of thousands of social-media followers," some of whom may actually read books. It also does not hurt that many have seen films in which the bookshop has a role, Midnight in Paris and Before Sunset, for example. Even those who stay at home may have watched Emily in Paris, the TV series.

  While Shakespeare and Company may have been seen by many, those who enter are not allowed to take "selfies", or photos inside the store, which is said to enhance the store's mystique. If you buy a book, it is stamped with the shop's name and logo, which proves one was there. Authors also visit and sign books which "can triple sales" and "higher-margin merchandise, including tote bags and notebooks, accounts for around 30% of total sales." I suppose that what this "Bookshop Reveals About Culture" is that the success of Shakespeare and Company cannot be attributed solely to books or a great desire to read them.

The Bulk Buying of Books
   Back in Canada, very large numbers of used books are being purchased. This is not necessarily good news. They are not bought to be read, but to be scanned. The books are pulled apart and used for training for large language models like Claude.

  "Physical books, particularly those published before OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, are in demand for AI companies. That's partly because some experts say the language models degrade when repeatedly trained on their own output, so they need to be fed with content that is guaranteed to be free of AI-generated text."

That is from: "Used Bookstores Navigate 'Suspicious Bulk Orders Amid AI Book-Shredding Fears," Kevin Maimann, CBC News, Sept 1, 2026.

A Beautiful Bookshop
  In the article in The Economist there is mention of Livraria Lello in Porto which looks like "a cross between a cathedral and a robber baron's mansion." You have to buy a ticket to get in.