Human Flower Project

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Bookstore of Your Dreams

Yes, there is a place to find that rare book on olive trees or the evolution of perfumery.

Inside the perennial Librairie René Thomas, Paris

Photo: Julie Ardery

Paris has not yet been Barnes-and-Ignobled. There are tiny bookstores not just around the Sorbonne, but everywhere, with crowded cases of paperbacks out on the sidewalk and rare editions with savory color plates on tall shelves inside.

René Thomas in front of his Paris bookstore

specializing in the Natural Sciences, since 1947

Photo: Julie Ardery

The most exciting we have seen is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), 28 rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard, not far from the Jardin des Plantes. M. Thomas has been in business since 1947 selling books on the natural sciences. Here you will find works in many languages, about non-human animal architecture, predatory birds of Africa, and volcanology. And, the librairie is truly a Human Flower Project: we’ve never seen so many intelligent and beautiful books – magazines and post cards too—on botany, ecology, gardens, and flowers. Where else will you find D. Pardon’s Guide to the Fruits of Tahiti and J.Ch. Gueguen’s Odyssey of perfumes: from the therapeutic to the aesthetic.

Furthermore, M. Thomas could not be more gracious, even to those of us from the land of “freedom fries.”

If you can’t have the immediate pleasure of visiting the bookshop, its web address is www.librairie-thomas.com. Treat youself to a look around.