Another traveling avid reader here... My suggestions include:

1) Lighten up on the guidebooks. I would NEVER carry "all those Michelin Guides". Copy relevant portion, rip pages, whatever.

2) Reconsider your plan to take large books and dense reading material. Especially on plane flights I have a terrible time concentrating on the kind of think I'd normally read at home. Once again, lighten up (but in a different way than above - LOL) take paperbacks.

3) In any city you will be able to find some kind of English language books somewhere, either new (I picked up Barbara Vine's newest release in Switzerland last trip from a small shelf of British offerings in a souvenier shop) or in used book stores. It is a fun challenge to include buying books on your trip.

4) Yes many hotels and sometimes even bars or restaurants have a small shelf of left-behinds paperbacks. Keep your eyes open everywhere.

5) Talk about reading with other people you meet traveling. I have traded paperbacks with strangers, ones we each had finished but still had in our hotel room or suitcase. Win win.

6) Remember airports will sell paperbacks so for the plane ride home you can get one last new book at your departure airport.

In every bigger city in France there's a FNAC Book, CD, DVD and Multimedia megastore in the center. They normally have quite a nice collection of English paperbacks. The cheapest ones are from the Penguin Classics series, mostly Victorian British novels.

I just had this brilliant idea in the shower after I posted...

Do you have hotel reservations? You could send yourself a package to receive somewhere mid-trip! Amazon ships to Europe. It's not cheap but it would sure lighten your load and you'd know you had a sure thing to look forward to.

Alternately you could make up your own care package with books, guidebooks for the 2nd half of the trip, a few fresh clothes.

:-)

When we've stayed in economical hotels, there is very often a shelf of used books in the lobby; I haven't noticed any on those rare occasions we have stayed in a ritzier place. Recently we have been renting apartments, and each has had a shelf of books, and a pile of fliers and menus from nearby restaurants.

I usually buy a few paperbacks and read them, or my guidebooks, then abandon the paperbacks when I have finished them, but always somewhere where there is hope that someone else will use them.

talking about renting apartments my last guests (British) left 2 or 3 books on the shelves where I put the books about Dijon and France along with magazines. I thought they had forgotten them!
I understood afterwards that it was because they were motorclycling... and now I read this post I can see it is very usual actually.

As a former receptionist I rarely had books left in the hotels I worked for.

JJBhoy, you read my mind, I use book crossing and have left books all over. I use a credit at the used bookstore and always pass along the many books I buy and read from there. You can leave them anywhere, all over the world.
www.bookcrossing.com

I think Lois is only going to be in France, and a lot of that in small towns.

I personally have not noticed a lot of leftover English books in the hotels I've stayed in that were "help yourself", so I wouldn't count on it, although you may run across it. A few times I have seen some but they were absolute garbage and I have too many books I want to read, and with all the good literature in the world, I won't spend my time reading junk. I can't ead it, even if I try, I just have no interest and can't get beyond a couple pages.

I would pack a few that are a little smaller type and thinner paper, things like that. Some books really take up a lot more room than they should. ALthough I'm getting too old that I can always read really itty bitty grayish type (at least it makes me tired).

All English language books aren't that expensive in France. Because there are so many British visitors, you can find some new cheap English classics in mass bookstores -- like the Dover versions of things.

I always take too many because I find I don't really read as much as I think I'm going to, and I spend a lot of time reading local newspapers and magazines, instead.

Loisco, at least in one hotel in Switzerland there was a small library for travelers. Ask the front desk, they may be able to help.

One of our favorite hotels in the Drôme had an entire bookcase filled with donated books, in French, English, Spanish, German, and even one Russian.

If you start out in Paris you can shop at the W. H. Smith bookstore on the rue de Rivoli--exellent selection of books in English, some not yet published in the U.S.

I leave books everywhere - and I get books everywhere. But I find the cheaper the hotel (1 star, B&B, etc) - the more likely there will be a bookshelve. But for some reason - I never take one if I can't leave one behind. It only seems fair.

dear everittp,

close, but no cigar ;-)

Shakespeare and Co. is on the left bank in the quartier latin--but it is definitely across from Notre Dame!

Thanks Fashionettet 2001
The left bank; of course, it is. I should stay off the computer after 8! The students and artists district.

Still a must stop for all of us who love to read. It's history is fun: Heminingway used it as a library. James Joyce couldn't find a publisher for "Ulysses" until the then owner, Sylvia Beach, published it. Shaw, Stein, Pound got their "fix for books" here. (I'm paraphrasing Rick Steves)

Still owned by the same family, and the great grand daughter is Sylvia!

My son and I usually bring two paperback book each then swap. It is never enough to get us through our trip so when we get close to finishing them up we start looking for bookstores with english books. We have been successful in Rome and Brugge and it is so much fun to see what there small collection consists of. I have also traded books at our hotels - leave a book/take a book. On our last trip there was a little shelf with 5 or 6 books on it. I took one and read it that night, replacing it in the morning. That afternoon all the books were gone! I wonder if I offended someone and they decided to hide the stash. Will never know. Happy reading.

"Heminingway used it as a library. James Joyce couldn't find a publisher for "Ulysses" until the then owner, Sylvia Beach, published it. Shaw, Stein, Pound got their 'fix for books' here. (I'm paraphrasing Rick Steves)"

Hmmm, well, maybe for the original Shakespeare & Co. which was on the rue de l'Odeon.


"Still owned by the same family, and the great grand daughter is Sylvia!"

And actually, Sylvia Beach, who was a lesbian & never married nor had children, & George Whitman are in no way related. They were great friends, though! Back in the '50s this bookstore was actually known as the Mistral. George was GREAT friends with the Beats (who holed up in the Beat Hotel, Hôtel Rachou now known as the Hôtel le Vieux Paris) and he used to publish their works. Later, he appropriated the Shakespeare & Co. name for his shop in deference to his good friend, Sylvia, whom he named his daughter after.

I wrote about it the Hôtel Rachou here:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tp/fe0f5/

And about Shakespeare & Co here:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tp/fe498/

And here:
http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tp/fe4be/

Many thanks to CigaleChanta who mailed me the fantastic book <u>The Beat Hotel</u> by Barry Miles, who was one of the Beats at the hotel &amp; who was dear friends with Allen Ginsberg (who I met once in 1992) and William S. Burroughs (who, to my great regret, I never met).

Hola, Fashionette!

I have noticed that lots of two and three star hotels around Europe have recently added 'guest libraries'which are really nothing more than a shelf of books, and the rule is, if you leave one you can take one. The Ibis chain seem to feature these in particular. When I was recently in a five star hotel in Asia, I noticed a beautiful glass fronted antique armoire in the lobby with...old paperbacks left by guests! This is to me, one of the lovelier trends. I love looking at all the different languages, and wondering about other travellers and wanderers who have been and gone. Over the years I have left dozens of English books in european hotels. I wonder if any of you have picked them up???

What great suggestions! I don't think though that I can rip up my Green Michelin Guides. Well..maybe I have to think about that one.

From what you are saying there is hope that I may find some books. I am saving my remaining Charles Todd and two Deborah Crombies.......and I have a very very large purse!!! Do they weigh the purses too?..and the tote?

We leave September 1...it's getting closer! First stop Normandy.