"What are you going to do with all your spare time while in Paris?"

"What are you going to do with all your spare time while in Paris?" A reoccurring question, after people found out that I work only 15 hours a week. Although I didn't have any major life changing plans when I first got here, one thing was for sure: I want to read until my brain explodes. Seems fitting as Paris has always been a literary capital, and because after six years of reading books from my university course lists, I would finally have almost unlimited amounts of metro commute time to catch up on years of reading. It would be far from true if I said I haven't read any personal selections, since I did somehow flip through sixteen novels over the course of my intended "four months of serious thesis writing time" as a means of procrastination. But finally there would be no guilt associated with reading. My to-read list is very long, it's literally impossible to play catch up since I am adding something new all the time. 

Shakespeare & Co. 37 rue de la Bucherie

One of my most favorite places to go in Paris is the Shakespeare and Co. bookshop. Yes, I realize it is located in the heart of "tourist Paris", and I realize it paints an image of yet-another-expat-in-Paris, but there is something about this place that makes me happy the second I step through the door. Sure, the entire place is filled with English books, not really going to improve my French, but that was part of the deal I made with myself: read whatever you have wanted to read this year. And reading I am! 

• The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Beatrice and Virginie by Yann Martel
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
• 1984 by George Orwell
• The Most Beautiful Walk in the World by John Baxter