If you were planning on travelling, probably the last place you'd plan to stay for the night is a shop. But that's exactly what one bookstore in Paris is offering – a bed for the night. Its owner welcomes anyone who has a love of literature.

The haven for booklovers is just a few steps from Quasimodo’s bell tower. Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky have been housemates there for more than half a century. Some people call the owner of this bookshop the ‘Don Quixote of the Latin Quarter’, while George Whitman himself feels like a hero from a Dostoyevsky novel. He says “The Idiot” is about him, and it’s his favourite book.

When you walk into this bookshop you feel as though you’ve stepped into someone’s home. Books line the walls from floor to ceiling.

Writers can come and spend the night. They’re welcome to stay there in exchange for a few hours' work, and they say it’s a perfect place to write a book.
 
During the 50 or 60 years that George has been running the bookshop, he has given a bed to about 100,000 people.
 
George is now 94, so his daughter runs the shop. If George is Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin, the leading character from “The Idiot”, then Sylvia compares herself to Alice in Wonderland.