Bookshop of the unknown

Recently I had the joy of spending a few days in Paris and, among the beautiful things I discovered, one was a bookshop dealing in all ‘unknown’ artifacts and utensils.

I love the name, such a great choice, just by passing it by in the taxi I could see it had within items that would spark my interest.

My taxi took me farther away but I made an effort to remember the area the bookshop was in, so I can walk my way to it.

After a wondrous visit to Notre Dame, I used google maps to find my way to the bookshop. I am not the best map reader, but after some grumbling with the maps arrow, (I never seem to understand in which direction it wants me to go), I managed to find it.

The space itself is not the biggest but it is full to the rafters with interesting items. Of course my first stop was the tarot decks section. It is huge!

Tarot decks, oracle decks, an immense variety, more than 1000 as I was to find from the shop assistant in my broken French.

I don’t know how much time I spent looking at them, I was down the rabbit hole. As most of them had demo decks I could actually open them and see what they looked like. Such a great experience!

Because I know myself before going in I set myself a budget I was allowed to spend. I am an awfully greedy shopper, I like everything and as a consequence I want to buy it, so knowing my weakness I set myself my budget to guide me.

This was essential as I loved so, so many things!

I have a lot of tarot decks, I refuse to count them as I do not want to face the reality of my madness, so this helped at my being more restraint.

What I found very interesting were two technical tarot aids created by French tarot expert Emmanuelle Iger.

Great resources for any tarot enthusiast.

Sadly I checked online after I got home to see if there is an English version and was unable to find one.

One of them is a spread repository titled Les 78 tirages de Tarot: Pour répondre à toutes vos questions which is an amazing resource of spreads for all your needs.

And the other is a named Antisèches du tarot: 28 fiches méthode pour tout comprendre which is a set of 28 beautiful, sturdy cards with tips to support you when doing readings so you do not get stuck.

I am beyond happy with my purchase although it challenges me to work on my French. They are indeed great tools of the trade of great quality.

The bookshop also has a great collection of books on all sorts of topics, it is not just focused on tarot, it has books on philosophy, magic, legends, all sorts. I found it funny that it also had a beautifully looking edition of Orwell’s 1984.

If you are interested there are also all sorts of oils and incense and candles.

I would have happily spent there a few good hours if I hadn’t been pressed by the call of the city.

If ever you find yourself roaming the streets of Paris and have a bit of time to browse an interesting bookshop, I fully recommend the one dedicated to the unknown, maybe you will find something you like.