During our stay in Paris, we stumbled upon another hidden gem for book lovers in Le Marais—an excellent complement to the Bibliothèque Forney, which we featured in a previous post [here].
Enjoy this while browsing…
Nestled within the historic Hôtel de Sully, this discovery is not a public library but rather a one-of-a-kind bookstore in France.
The bookstore at the Hôtel de Sully is a treasure trove for anyone passionate about France’s rich heritage, covering a wide range of topics—including regions, architecture, gardens, and cuisine.
The bookstore offers an exceptional collection of works, including the full catalog of Éditions du Patrimoine published by the Center for National Monuments (Centre des Monument Nationaux). We will give you a tour of the tables of books.
As part of the Centre’s public service mission, Éditions du Patrimoine is dedicated to both presenting the latest research findings in diverse fields such as built and movable heritage, architecture, art history, and archaeology, and making heritage knowledge accessible to a wide audience.
With around fifteen well-defined collections—including guides, art books, children’s literature, theoretical texts, and scientific publications—Éditions du Patrimoine caters to curious explorers, travelers, students, researchers, as well as young readers. In total, 700+ titles showcase the heritage managed by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux and its partners.
We are really interested in the recommended itineraries for visits to numerous buildings (chateau, monastery, abbey, fortress, palace, villa) around the country, each with a dedicated guide book.
The bookstore also sells books by numerous publishers specializing in Paris and regional heritage, many of which are hard to find elsewhere, earning it not only French readers but also an international audience (like us).
There are books on tourist favorites, Parisian historic buildings (Palais), historical areas (Le Marais), legendary films as well as book series on each of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, famous writers and their life in the city. Click on the image to see a full-size version of it.
The bookstore also offers a wide range of books on architecture, spanning from traditional to modern styles.
On this blog, we’d like to showcase a selection of remarkably different bookstores. Recently, we posted about an independent Alaskan shop that remains open year-round despite the paucity of tourists in the winter months, and it even publishes its own titles dedicated to the region. Another post is on a Provençal pop-up, open only during the city’s photography festival, which sells exclusively global travel publications curated by a luxury brand. Here, the bookstore at the Hôtel de Sully—housed in a 17th-century building—specializes in government publications and with other titles promote travel within a single country: France.
For a brief history of the Hôtel de Sully, read our next post [here].