When I walked up the rickety stair case at Shakespeare and Company on the left bank of Paris I honestly thought I might never leave. Books in every spare corner, piled high, messy, old, cramped, an old piano, a window out into the street, a few plants scattered about. I think there was a cat up there. I cannot remember now but certainly it had ambience. Out of all the bookstores in the world and this one still exists for the hungry likes of the poets, artists, writers and pilgrims who will make there way down past Place Saint-Michel for a walk along the Seine to the famous bookstore.