Joseph Gibert, 5'0", the world's greatest bookseller

The Gibert bookstores, Joseph and Jeune, have been an extraordinary human, entrepreneurial, and family adventure. You absolutely must read — Les Passeurs d'histoires by Françoise Kerymer, just released by Buchet-Chastel, which tells the story of this french "cultural institution." 

From Le Puy-en-Velay (Auvergne) to Place Saint-Michel, the saga of the Giberts — Joseph, Elise, Régis, Ernestine — is an incredible page-turner that would deserve a film or streaming adaptation. Before Emily in Paris, there was Joseph on the banks of the Seine, in Paris. Joseph Gibert and then Gibert Jeune were the first to sell second-hand books prior to Momox, Book-off, Amazon.

Françoise Kerymer is a novelist and the great granddaughter of one of the Gibert heirs. She spent four years of her life tracking down the documents, photographs, and archives that trace this quintessentially French adventure — one we can only hope will continue. That said, action will be needed quickly to transform the customer experience at Gibert, which has been slipping.

Libella, the group that owns Buchet-Chastel, is an independent publishing player in France, driven by a remarkable team and backed by the support of Vera Michalski-Hoffmann. Its CEO, Mathieu Cosson, is a quietly unconventional École Polytechnique graduate who has worked at Le Figaro, Les Échos, and Madrigall, Gallimard's holding company. What becomes of the dreams of youth when you didn't make it into the École Normale Supérieure, or when you once thought you'd become a priest? How many students shoplifted books or records from Gibert — and sometimes paid them back years later? The 1910 Seine flood, the RER bombings, bitter family feuds, one of the founders walking his goat through Clamart in the evenings to clear his head… All 584 pages fly by. On the Left Bank of the Seine, in the publishing field, there's more than just Grasset.

Header photo, one of Gibert's bookstores in 1910 © Françoise Kerymer