he library upstairs at Shakespeare & Co has a large front casement window which looks out through plane trees at the towers of Notre Dame across the Seine. Many's the time I've sat curled in one of the deep leather chairs on either side, reading a book picked at random from the shelves. Outside, I would hear the sound of traffic on the quai, mixed with fragmented sentences floating up from book-browsers on the sidewalk.

I remember hot summer evenings late in August, the sky dark, the sidewalks bathed in the sallow yellow of the street-lights. Looking out the library window I would suddenly see the plane trees transformed, incandescent, illuminated from the river below by a passing Bateaux Mouche. For a moment it was magic, the underside of leaves bright-lit, the branches casting shadows starkly up, against the normal daytime flow of light. As the boat moved on upstream, the shadows slumped off the startled branches to rejoin the general night.

On most mornings I would wake up early, step carefully over the other tumbleweeds still in their sleeping bags strewn on the floor, and pick my way across the room to slip down the steep back stairs into the deserted shop.

These were among my favorite moments: the back corners of the bookshop deep in shadow, morning sunlight pouring through the windows into the front room, filling it. I would wander silently through the rooms scanning shelves, and pick off any title that happened to catch my eye. Settle in to the ragged swivel chair and read until George descended to open up the shop.