Sunday, June 14, 2015

When a Bookstore Closes, an Argument Ends

I happened to find myself in Paris last week and went to look one last time at an almost seventy-year-old bookstore called La Hune, on the Place St.-Germain des Prés. I knew that it would be closing for good, though I was surprised to find that its fermeture definitive was to be this week, on Saturday, June 14th. I walked through La Hune one last time, sniffing the books and looking at the posters, and found myself far more distraught than I expected to be. I felt a deep sense of loss, more than mere regret, and ever since I have been trying to decide why I felt this way and whether the feeling was mine alone or might have resonance elsewhere.

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