Penelope Fletcher Le MassonPenelope Fletcher Le Masson comes from “an island off an island off Vancouver”. She seems to have been born with a dedication to selling books: before her twentieth birthday, she’d persuaded her father to refit an old henhouse as a moveable bookstore, a brightly painted gyspy caravan which she stocked with second-hand books and set up near the only other store on the island. “But don’t write that, will you?” she asks, blushing. I hope she lets me: she may be shy about her youthful entrepreneurship, but there’s still a bookstore on the Hornby Island site today (though the henhouse is gone), and in Paris, half a planet away, she now runs one of the nicest bookshops I’ve ever visited.

The Red Wheelbarrow SignPenelope opened the Red Wheelbarrow in Paris’s Marais district in 2001. It’s a vibrant outlet for both new and backlist books, which are shelved from floor to ceiling and stacked on every available table and chair, and a good portion of the floor. As is the case with many English-language bookstores in Europe, the stock consists of both British and American editions, which makes for a visually stimulating browse.

What really makes the Red Wheelbarrow special, though, is the sense of community that surrounds it. I visited one afternoon last month, and while we talked bookselling and drank ginger beer, a constant stream of people entered both the shop and the conversation: there were tourists looking for guidebooks and leaving with a stack of novels; locals paying their daily visit while walking the dog, friends dropping in to catch up on the gossip of the night before (plenty of readings and other events take place here in the evenings). At one point, an American couple appeared, known regulars by virtue of an annual visit during their vacation. Several times Penelope made introductions among her customers and there was the sense of new friendships being made.

Books on sale in the Red WheelbarrowWhile I left with a book—and would have taken a great deal more if I’d had a fatter wallet that day—it’s not the richly stocked shelves that makes the Red Wheelbarrow special, so much as the role it plays in the local community. It’s good to know that there are still bookshops like this, places where ideas are exchanged and lasting friendships are made, where you can while away the afternoon talking even without the assistance of a coffee concession. It’s the kind of place you’d want to exist if you’d just moved to a new town. Ultimately, it’s also a reminder that independent bookshops like The Red Wheelbarrow can have an importance to the community that even outweighs their importance as bookshops. And that’s saying something.

The Red Wheelbarrow, 22, rue St Paul, 75004 Paris. Tel. 01 4804 7508