The legend of a tiny, socialist utopia
ANY bibliophile who has visited Paris will be familiar with Shakespeare & Co, the bookstore at 37 Rue de la Bucherie, across the Seine from Notre Dame. The death last week of its American proprietor, George Whitman, has caused great sadness, but no one could argue he had not done enough in the service of literature. Whitman devoted much of his 98 years to buying, selling and loaning books, and spent 60 of those running his uniquely ramshackle business.
Whitman was born in New Jersey on December 12, 1913, and reared at Salem, Massachusetts. He studied journalism at Boston University, and devoted the seven years to trekking through Central and South America. He served in the Merchant Marine during the Second World War, and spent several months stationed in Greenland, claiming later he had lived with an Eskimo woman.
