Book Around the Corner

As promised in my billet Literary Escapade : Lisbon and Pessoa, a little tour of the bookstores and bookish things I saw in Lisbon. I don’t speak Portuguese but I quickly picked up that bookstore is livraria, book is livro and it struck me that the word to say free is livre, the way we say book in French. Yes, books make you free.

There seem to be another connection between Portugal and France when it comes to books. The oldest bookshop in the world is the Livraria Bertrand in Lisbon and Bertrand is a very French name. I wondered how this famous Portuguese literary place could have such a French name. The Livraria Bertrand was founded in 1732, before the great earthquake of 1755. (See Candide by Voltaire) It is not located in the same premises as the ones in 1732 but it’s in the Chiado neighborhood, not very far from the café A Brasileira, where Pessoa liked to go. Pedro Faure started his printing house in 1727, which turned into a bookshop. It became the Livraria Bertrand in 1752 after his daughter married a French gentleman named Bertrand and Faure handed his business to the Bertrand brothers. Voilà, the Livraria Bertrand was born. Of course, I had to visit this marvelous place where a lot of writers used to meet and that has been in the book loving business for almost 300 years. Here’s the side of the store, with the mention of its age and the typical ajulezos.

The entrance looks like this…

…and it’s full of dark wood shelves.

Although I don’t speak Portuguese, I still loved browsing through display tables and see what was pushed towards Portuguese readers. I was delighted to see this edition of the whole collection of Mafalda’s comics for her 50th anniversary.

Here’s what Livraria Bertrand recommends for the holidays

or

Hmm. I’m not sure I want to read Primo Levi when I’m on vacation.

Seems like the Jane Austen anniversary was celebrated here too. Apparently, they also have these horrible covers where women have no face, only skirts and legs. Where does this strange habit stem from? We have the same ones in France and Anglophone publishers like them too.

Not far from this shop is another literary reference. This shop, Au bonheur des dames must have been a women’s clothes store in the past. Indeed, Au Bonheur des dames is the French title of Ladies’ Paradise.

Sadly, it is now a Nespresso store and they didn’t put George Clooney’s ads on display, which could have been another version of Ladies’ Paradise… I have seen other bookstores, like this one.

It looks as old and used as the books it sells. And here’s a former bookstore in Bairro Alto.

I have seen the sign Pura Poesia on several walls…

Near Lisbon, in Sintra, there’s a stair named after Lord Byron,

near the Hotel Lawrence, where he used to stay.

But the loveliest bookish thing I saw in Lisbon is this book box in the tropical greenhouse Estufa Fria.

It’s in a little grove in this giant greenhouse

and you can leave books there for anyone to take. I love these book boxes that bloom in our cities and it was such an improbable place to find one. They remind us that books are meant to be shared.

That’s all folks!

I hope you enjoyed my little bookish tour of Lisbon because I sure had a lot of fun taking all these pictures. (Even if I’ve proven again that photographer is not a career for me)