The Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore — Local services in Paris

First trip to Paris, I was very excited to go to an English bookshop and dragged my partner out of our way to include this stop on our tour of the city. We were immediately stopped at the entrance by the attendants, who were having lunch outside but seemed happy to leave us in the store to browse. 2 minutes later, they came back in to ask us to leave (as we were there to browse, rather than look for a specific book) and come back in 15-20 mins. I found the gesture to be particularly rude and tasteless, and it made me quite sad that after walking for an hour to get there, we couldn’t even be patrons. Needless to say, I was so upset that we didn’t go back. The shop looked like it had a wide selection of interesting books - but like I said, didn’t have the chance to look properly. Would like for this to be a reassurance to the owners and staff that you don’t know what someone is going through, and it doesn’t cost anything to be polite...

I recently re-visited The Red Wheelbarrow, and sadly, it was a disappointing experience. My first visit back in May left me underwhelmed. The place was a mess, with books piled up in every corner and under every table, which made the whole store feel chaotic, not charming. The owner was quite rude, but you know what? I figured it was just a stressful moment—it happens. However, when I came back to give it another try, things were barely any different. The only change was that they now have a third location on the same street, still empty, but also, not really. While the selection is interesting, I don't think it's worth the "hype". Shakespeare is no better, but I’d recommend trying Galignani instead. They have a much larger selection, and the space is big enough that you won’t feel like you're...

Good selection of books, but the owner was not as nice to us as to the other reviewers. I went with my husband, my brother and his girlfriend and we were all browsing separately and at one point 3 of us were on our phones for different reasons (none that had to do with buying the books online as we actually were planning on buying them there). The owner rudely approach us and asked us about what we were doing on our phones and if we were planning to buy the books on Amazon because she had heard that happened at other bookstores but that that had never happened there or at the previous location at Le Marais. We said that no, that was not the case, and she insisted and made us extremely uncomfortable so a few minutes after that we left without buying anything and...