Let me begin by saying that I am probably one of the biggest book nerds you will ever meet. I love everything from Austen to Fitzgerald, from Plath to Wilde, and don’t get me started on biographies of powerful women. As you can likely deduce, it was a no-brainer that I chose to visit Librairie à Soi(e) for this assignment. Bookstores have always been a safe space for me, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of society where I feel everyone can find their own form of peace. Librairie à Soi(e) felt like one of those places. Women owned and operated, this shop features the works of famous women spanning generations, books about gender and queerness, and even children’s books about discovering personal identity. Another bonus – it has an English section! So, for those of you looking for something feminist or queer parallel to read that isn’t in French, this is absolutely the place to look.
Simply walking into this librairie made me feel happy. It is an open space with high ceilings and there is very little space that is not covered with books or gender paraphernalia. The front of the store has a recommendations section where you can find what the owners and employees love to read, which a feature that I love to find in a bookstore. The rest of the store is sectioned off by author and genre, and there’s an entire shelf dedicated to LGBTQ+ books! One of the best sections I saw, where I actually spent most of my time, was the children’s section in the back of the shop. This section has a plethora of books introducing children to the topics of gender, sex, identity, and feminism. When I was young, I never saw anything like this – and I spent a lot of my time in bookstores. I can’t imagine what a difference it would make in so many children’s lives to have access to literature like this, allowing them to discover things about themselves while learning to love reading. Finally, I’ll finish up the tour back at the front of the store near the check-out counter where you can find cards, jewelery, games and nick nacks all themes toward feminism and queerness. They even had ceramic earrings of different body parts! All in all, this bookstore is a safe and warm environment where I got lost wandering through the stacks, and I hope that if you end up visiting them you have the same experience.
This store is a wonderful resource for both the feminist and LGBTQIA+ community. It provides a space just for them where they can thrive around what they love – books – and feel comfortable doing it. No matter what gender or sex you identify with, I believe that you can find something that will make you happy in this store, which I think is very important for the French community especially because of their turmoil-like history with gay and women’s rights. I am sure many authors, such as Proust and Colette would be shocked (both in different ways of course) to see a store like this. And I know what some people may think – yes, this is a store dedicated to feminist and queer works, which means that not everyone is going to find what they are looking for or something that they can relate to here. Yet, hopefully others can realize that this space is open to everyone, and I encourage everyone to try and find something that piques their interests in the store. I myself have already made three purchases on the two different occasions that I have been in.
I have yet to find any bookshops like this back at home in the US, though I sincerely hope some exist and I would love to discover them. I believe places like this can impact people in such a positive way. Reading is a wonderful hobby, form of escape, and way to relate to others, and I believe that feminist and queer bookstores will encourage connection and bonding within such communities. I believe that it’s interesting to take a moment to think about whether Colette would have come to a store like this if it existed in her time, or whether she would have sold her books here. I believe she definitely would have. On the other hand, what would Proust think? As a shameful homosexual, would he have been discouraged, or even disgusted, by an establishment like this? These are some interesting things I have thought about since my visits to the librairie.
I hope I have persuaded all of you to visit Librairie à Soi(e), and I encourage you to form your own opinion of the space, whether it be similar or completely different from mine.
Thanks for reading!
