Discovering an incredible second-hand bookshop
A few steps off famous rue Sainte-Catherine, turn onto rue des Ayres to find a place straight out of a novel. Fitting, since we're talking about books! Reading lovers, students with reading lists as long as your arm, or the merely curious: La nuit des Rois second-hand bookshop opens its shelves to anyone old enough to read. Laurent opened his shop in 1999. He spent 13 years at Pey Berland and moved to number 38 rue des Ayres seven years ago.
4 main themes
Four themes are especially close to his heart: humanities (philosophy, anatomy...), history, comics and paperbacks sit alongside art books and esoterica. Counting the magazines, more than 20,000 titles crowd the shelves that climb to the ceiling. Between antique books, old papers and stationery, Laurent laughs about this « cavern arrangement » that he only half-loves. He prefers order. But, he tells me, bibliophiles don't see it that way, since customers almost always pick from the batches he's just brought in.
Anyone can bring in books for sale, but Laurent also loves antiques. 16th-century maps, modern paintings and vintage movie posters line the walls of this Ali Baba's cave for readers. And gems pass through his hands: recently he had the chance to buy part of the collection of Robert Coustet, an eminent Bordeaux professor, the rest having been donated to city museums and to the town hall.
Laurent's passion
When I ask Laurent if he was destined for this bookseller's trade, he smiles: at six he already told his parents he would have a bookshop! Everything seemed to point that way since his family name Desrois is also a Shakespeare title, which he later took as the emblem of his kingdom. Laurent has worked alone for several years, which doesn't stop him from bringing his precious books to the Chartrons book fair, to cours Mably or to the Quinconces for booksellers' events. But if books stand on their own through their content and phrasing, the pleasure of the eyes is multiplied when you step through the door of La nuit des Rois.
LIBRAIRIE, LA NUIT DES ROIS
Address: 38 rue des Ayres, Bordeaux 33000
Phone: 06 09 78 48 83
Website: www.librairielanuitdesrois.com
