A great American bookseller died this week: George Whitman, who reigned at Paris' Shakespeare & Co. for over half a century, passed away at the age of 98 in his apartment above his store, with its view across the Seine onto Notre Dame Cathedral. For book lovers, there is no better way to go.
Though a long-time Parisian, Whitman was born in New Jersey and educated at Harvard. I remember once browsing in his store and hearing three young backpackers ask about beds. (Whitman not only sold books, he offered free lodging, usually in exchange for help in the store. One of these boarder-workers, Jeremy Mercer, wrote a memoir of the experience, "Time Was Soft There," published in 2005). Whitman told the young men that he was completely full until they mentioned they were Harvard students; in that case, he said, they could stay. (Giving them perhaps the first of many Crimson-inspired perks.)
The community of great American booksellers is not very large. There are great American bookstores - Portland's Powell's stands out - but not that many that are associated with an individual (at least in the mind of the reading public). There is Whitman's friend and contemporary Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights in San Francisco; Larry McMurtry (best known as a writer) at Booked Up in Archer City, Texas; and Mitchell Kaplan at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. Ferlinghetti is in his 90's, McMurtry in his 70's. Which means that the youthful, middle-aged Miamian will probably, sadly, take on the title of Last Great American Bookseller.
