From Philly to Paris: Jeannine Cook Brings A Brilliant New Bookstore to the City of Lights
In February 2020, Philadelphia-based entrepreneur, Jeannine Cook, opened the doors to Harriett’s Bookshop - a bookstore centering the work of Black women authors and activists under the guiding light of Harriet Tubman. In the fall of 2021, Cook opened Harriett’s sister store, Ida’s Bookshop in Collingswood, New Jersey. And now, Cook is bringing her brand of revolutionary, Black-women centered bookstore to the City of Lights with the launch of Josephine’s Bookshop (5 Rue de Medicis. Paris, France 75006), a pop-up bookstore in Paris honoring the legendary entertainer, expat and spy, Josephine Baker.
Building More than Just a Bookstore
Jeannine Cook had a vision for her a bookstore and then made it happen. Voila, Josephine’s Bookshop.
To be clear, Jeannine Cook is more than a shopkeeper, more than a lover of books and Black people, although she is all of those things. Cook is an innovator, a sage, and a conduit between our revolutionary foremothers and the present day. She is a savvy entrepreneur, community activist, and multimedia artist as well. And for what it’s worth, Cook doesn’t seem to believe in the word impossible. If she did, she wouldn’t have been able to open Harriett’s, an unapologetically Black bookstore in a historically white working-class neighborhood in Philly one month before the COVID pandemic shut the world down, and come out on the other side, not only with her business intact, but also with a whole new bookstore opened and thriving in another state.
Personally, I’ve heard Cook described as “being from the future,” otherworldly and a visionary because of all of the amazing projects she dreams up and is then able to execute. When we spoke over the phone for this article, she laughed at the description but understands the sentiment. But her explanation for how she is able to accomplish so much as a bookseller, things that other people would in fact, deem impossible, is quite simple. “I believe that I am guided and protected and I am part of something larger on the spectrum of freedom,” she says. “Yes, you can call [Harriett’s and Ida’s] ‘bookshops,’” she continues, “but in many ways they’re altars where we come to celebrate the life and legacy of these people we have a connection to.” Note to future booksellers, they don’t teach that at business school.
Why Paris? Why Josephine?
Josephine Baker photographed in Cuba (public domain photo)
Cook’s connection to Paris is multifold. In addition to the longterm historical relationship between Paris and Philadelphia, Cook has been a teacher, student and traveller in the City of Lights. And every time she was there, she felt a pull to come back and do something meaningful. Meanwhile, Josephine Baker’s life story and identity as a Black American woman who found her freedom in France had Cook intrigued. And so she listened and she followed the pull to learn more and watched and waited for signs from Josephine herself. Cook says the fact that Baker volunteered to be a spy to support the war effort, like Harriet Tubman, was one of the first things that captured her imagination. “Josephine was a spy while she was still performing,” Cook says in awe. “She was under attack, but she was also serving as protector for the people of France. Like so many Black women, she was feminine and she was warrior. At the same time.”
As she did for Harriett Tubman and Ida B. Wells, Cook wanted to pay homage to Baker with this pop-up shop. (For the record, Cook has also done pop-up shops in honor of Marian Anderson and Toni Morrison.) And she also wanted to create a space in Paris to inspire conversations and community around the themes that Baker’s life exemplifies, like freedom and liberation. And most importantly, she wants Josephine’s, like her sister shops in the United States, to be a community space to celebrate Black American culture.
The Josephine’s Bookshop Experience
Josephine’s will feature a selection of books about Josephine Baker and the people and places she influenced throughout her lifetime.
Josephine’s Bookshop is not going to be your average bookstore. Altar, exhibit, gathering space, it will be all of these things. Cook says Josephine’s will be a curated experience that combines multimedia elements, books, and historical artifacts in honor of the life and times of Josephine Baker. And by the way, if you think Josephine Baker was just a colored girl from St. Louis who became a showgirl in France, then you don’t know the half of it. Like Cook, Josephine didn’t make friends with the word impossible. Her life is a testament to agency, possibility, reinvention and freedom. Yes, she was a beloved entertainer across Europe, but she was also a polyglot, a mother of 12 children, a spy in WWII, a landowner, and a Civil Rights activist. You can imagine the stories she could tell and the wisdom she could share. Fun fact, according to Cook, you don’t have to imagine it, because patrons of Josephine’s Bookshop will actually be able to interact with Josephine, with the aid of virtual reality technology.
As a bookseller, Cook is only too aware of doomsday proclamations that predict books are going the way of the dinosaur, soon to be replaced by technology. But she sees possibility where others project a depressing future where books don’t exist. “We have an opportunity to sit at the intersection of these two worlds, of literature and technology, and see how they can work together,” Cook says. “As opposed to seeing them at odds.” Yes, her medium is bookshops, but Cook doesn’t see any problem with using technology to augment the bookshop experience, especially if it can bring more people into her world and connect them to the heroes of our past.
Ironically, the only true challenge Cook is facing to bring Josephine’s Bookshop to life, is procuring the books for the store.
Books without Borders
In the shop, Cook wants to showcase a diverse selection of books for adults and children that reflect the life and times of Josephine Baker, as well as the themes and interests that were relevant to her life. The majority of the books will be in English, but Cook says she’s obviously not opposed to carrying books in French as well. Admittedly, this whole pop-up in Paris experience has been a faith walk for Cook, but that’s been the case for all of her recent literary projects, and for the most part, things have worked out.
But the one thing that Cook didn’t anticipate was how difficult and expensive it is to actually import books from overseas. Importing books from the United States into France (and other European countries) is ridiculously expensive due to the import taxes both the sender and the receiver have to pay. Earlier in the summer, Cook asked her social media followers to send a book to the store that they thought should be sold at Josephine’s, but even that option proved costly for both parties.
The price tag on getting books across borders feels punitive so in response, Cook is already speaking out against the practice seeking to drive awareness to the issue by posing the question to her community, her fellow booksellers, publishers and transport companies. “What ways can we make sure that books can exist without borders?”
Stay tuned to see how Jeannine and her particular brand of magic makes that happen. It is a particularly salient problem to address for Cook – and booksellers and authors around the world – as she already has plans in motion for her next pop-up shop in Nairobi, Kenya in 2024.
A Revolutionary Bookstore Opens on a Revolutionary Day in France
Josephine’s Bookshop will open this Friday, July 14, 2023, which is Bastille Day in France, or French Independence Day. “It’s a revolutionary bookstore, why not open it on a revolutionary day?” Cook says. Shop hours aren’t etched in stone yet, but Cook says it will probably be open from 10am - 6pm. The plan is to stay in their temporary home in the Sixth Arrondissement though the entire month of July. They have the option of staying on through August. Cook says she is open to all possibilities.
If you live in Paris, or close by, please go and support Jeannine Cook and her latest literary gift to us all. Josephine’s Bookshop is located at: 5 Rue de Medicis. Paris, France 75006. You can follow Harriett’s Bookshop on Instagram for updates about the store.