Salon du Livre et Papiers Anciens

Following the contemporary vibe of FIAC, we decided to head to the twice annual Salon du Livre et Papiers Ancien (Books and old papers), in the rather dreary site of Porte de Champeret. This salon is quintessentially french in a very old school way: picture little, slightly hunched, and red nosed men and women, lots of wool and plaid, lots of dry sarcasm and loud joking to one another fueled by lots of wine. All of the vendors maintain a week-long buzz, as evidenced by the 1/2 full bottle on each table.

M and I have been a couple of times now and each year we walk away with some good finds. It is mostly older French material: letters/cards/photos/books but there is also a fair amount of modern things to be found. I was not psychologically as psyched up to go this year because usually we go in the winter, when it is cold, so being indoors and scavanging through dusty paper sounds more appealing. The motivation on my part also stems from the number of incredibly delicious pop-up restaurants. Typically we go for the charcuterie and cheese with red wine, but this year we took in 12 amazing oysters and some petit chablis. Helps smooth the sales. Unfortunately we both foolishly forgot our cameras because there were some good photos to be taken.

Also a shout out to Sartoni Prints, run by Jader Sartoni, my friend Zoe's husband, and who really has the classiest booth of them all!
Through November 1.