Bookstore on wheels

July 31, 2019 7:53 AM

This Tiny Traveling Bookstore Wanders the French Countryside "He had originally thought about opening a brick-and-mortar bookshop but decided he wanted one that could travel to French country towns whose bookstores have often closed. He also wanted a space where he could live during his travels."
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee (19 comments total)

My part of north London has Words on the Water.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:18 AM on July 31, 2019 [6 favorites]

This sounds really neat and feeds a romantic part of my soul I didn't know I had. Only problem is that the article seems to end abruptly, seems there should be more to this story.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 8:27 AM on July 31, 2019 [3 favorites]

Chalk this up to "professions I would have chosen if I'd known they'd existed", right next to "cat behaviorist".
posted by Frowner at 8:37 AM on July 31, 2019 [9 favorites]

Well, it looks like I now have my own retirement plan.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:38 AM on July 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

(Spoiler alert: Phineas Gage doesn’t make it to retirement.)
posted by mantecol at 8:50 AM on July 31, 2019 [10 favorites]

I love every part of this. Did anyone else think of a grown up Microbe et Gasoil?
posted by gwint at 9:07 AM on July 31, 2019

Eeeee! I was just coming in here to mention Words on the Water. I can see it from my desk right now.
posted by Molesome at 9:18 AM on July 31, 2019 [5 favorites]

Nifty. I'll just be over here pining.
posted by praemunire at 9:24 AM on July 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

What a lifestyle!
Just can’t quite believe you can make a living that way...
posted by Segundus at 9:40 AM on July 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

Drive verrrry carefully over the bumps...
posted by clawsoon at 9:42 AM on July 31, 2019

Just can’t quite believe you can make a living that way...

You can always cook the books.
posted by hal9k at 11:45 AM on July 31, 2019 [7 favorites]

Only problem is that the article seems to end abruptly, seems there should be more to this story.

That's just the trailer.

I'll stop now.
posted by hal9k at 11:46 AM on July 31, 2019 [5 favorites]

"Back in the good ol' days, when dinosaurs ruled the earth... we would light a lamp, sit back in the rocking chair, snuggle under a patchwork blanket...."
"... And play Minecraft?"
"No, we would read a book. No batteries, no internet, just paper and ink. Maybe some pictures. And imagination... lots of imagination."
"Whoa... do they still make those?"
posted by TrishaU at 1:07 PM on July 31, 2019

These both sound great, (I mean the subject of the FPP and the waterborne equivalent). I toiled for a while for Hostelling International and am sorry that I missed the era of a long-vanished hostel that was housed in a houseboat on the Rideau Canal. You would check in in Kingston (on Lake Ontario) and check out two or three days later in Ottawa, on the Ottawa River. Or do the trip in the other direction. Whatevs.

I remember once being unable to persuade an Englishwoman I was travelling with in Egypt to take a multi-day cruise down the Nile from Aswan to Cairo by felucca. She objected to the expense (which, to be fair, was more than the train). I pointed out correctly that for about the price of a good meal in London, she could spend a week drifting down the Nile: surely a better story than eating the special at Nando’s.

In short, I want to travel by boat. Thank you.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:14 PM on July 31, 2019 [3 favorites]

good meal in London ... special at Nando’s.

Well, make your mind up!
posted by Paul Slade at 2:40 PM on July 31, 2019 [4 favorites]

This is the setting/plot of Christopher Morley's Parnassus on Wheels a 1917 novel about a traveling bookshop. Read it in high school and I can't remember anything about it except the caravan, but it's available on Project Gutenberg.

It's an utterly lovely idea.
posted by jrochest at 2:50 PM on July 31, 2019 [1 favorite]

We've got something similar up here with St. Rita's Amazing Traveling Bookstore.
posted by ikahime at 3:24 PM on July 31, 2019 [1 favorite]

Back in my day, when we were kids, there was a sort of bus-bookstore... I can't remember now if it sold books or was a library thing... we called it the Bookmobile and it was a treat on a boring school day after beating a woolly mammoth to death for snacktime....
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

Also, I love that the tiny wheely bookshop has a cat. Because priorities, man.
posted by Pastor of Muppets at 8:04 PM on July 31, 2019 [2 favorites]