Time Was Soft There (Jeremy Mercer)

Time Was Soft There is a memoir about Jeremy Mercer's time spent in Paris. Mercer, a former crime reporter fearing for his safety, left Canada and took a flight, landing in Paris on New Years Eve with a student visa. He soon found a home in the upper levels of a legendary bookstore, Shakespeare and Co.,owned and run by George, an aging socialist who had been providing free shelter to writers for decades. 

Mercer recounts the months he spent at the bookstore, living in close quarters with other writers, learning to live cheaply on very little money, experiencing romantic disappointment, and choosing a new direction for his own life. Time Was Soft There is an enjoyable documentation of Mercer's life, but also of the life within Shakespeare and Co. Although it is a memoir, it reads like fiction.