The only one I know of is the world famous Shakespeare and Company Bookstore - I've always wanted to go there!

When you go, be sure to take some pictures to post on the blog. :)

Will The Hunchback of Notre Dame be on your list? I am told that one can actually climb way up into the Notre Dame bell tower and walk - well, more like creep - out onto the ledge. Please take pictures.

For you, Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast." For your daughter, and just to put a few more gray hairs on your head, "Naughty Paris: A Lady's Guide to the Sexy City" by Heather Stimmler-Hall (mea culpa....she's a friend). A pilgrimage to the site of Baltimore-born Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Company bookstore at 8 rue Dupuytren is not a far walk from the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg. Mangez, buvez, et soyez littéraire à Paris! (I took a very good French class at JHU's Odyssey program last spring, but don't quote me on that last line.)

Gregg, Heather: Shakespeare & Co. sounds magical and will definitely be a destination. I had no idea there was a Baltmore connection, but that will make a visit more meaningful. My daughter found the shop during her first few weeks in Paris, and here's how she described it in an email:
i explored with some friends today, and we found among other things an amazing bookstore, shakespeare&co, that someone had told me about. it's one of the most incredible things i've ever seen.
old building with narrow, windy rows/shelves with new and used mostly english books. beds and chairs among the books. we browsed for a while, then some random british boy told my friend and me that there was a "tea party upstairs in george's room." confused but deeply curious, we followed his directions up a couple flights of stairs. we opened a door into a small room FILLED with books with about 10 people inside, all english-speaking, ages 17-80, sipping tea and eating cookies and talking.
"george," it turns out, has owned the place for years and just loves for people to come stay there and enjoy it. so students/wandering travellers can sleep in the random beds around the store in exchange for a couple hours of work a day.
tea time happens every sunday in that room, and the people we met were so unbelievable--all with different stories, etc. it was so overwhelming..seriously felt like a dream. felt like hemingway was just going to pop out from under the table

Dave, I'm so jealous of you and your daughter. I was in Paris for a little under 48 hours this summer. I absolutely fell in love with the city, and I've already started putting money away so I can go back again. I've been reading "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" by Antonia Fraser for awhile, and have really enjoyed it. I started reading before I even booked my trip, and the book really made me want to visit Versailles.

When my tour offered a half day trip to visit the palace, I jumped at the chance. It's about a 20-minute train ride from the city center, and well worth the short trip. The town is beautiful, and it's only a short walk to the palace from the metro station. The palace and grounds are beautiful, and I would suggest dedicating an entire day to visit everything. It's hard to believe that someone actually lived there.

Oh and make sure you eat a crepe before you leave. Get one with nutella and you won't be disappointed!

Try the Soho Crime mysteries by Cara Black - they are all set in Paris and they are WONDERFUL. The titles are: Murder in the Marais, Murder on the Isle Saint-Louis, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, Murder in Montmartre, Murder in the Sentier. The author also has a guide to the Paris of her protagonist at
http://www.carablack.com/aimeesguide.html.

For pre-travel reading, I highly recommend Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon. I have yet to find a better book on Parisian life and culture from the American perspective, though it's more about the experience of living there as opposed to visiting.

As for chocolatiers and patisseries, all I can say is the farther from the tourist destinations it is, the better it will likely be.

My suitcase is filling up -- and will soon exceed the weight limit -- but I appreciate all the suggestions. I like the idea of reading something old (Hunchback) as well as something new.

Try to eat at Le Coin de Verre (great wine at small mark up - 10e), picnic in Parc des Buttes Chaumont (19e), and attend a free concert at Radio France (16e).

Bookstores: Shakes & Co has the charm, but W.H. Smith on Rue de Rivoli has a great selection, too.

Books:

Edith Wharton - French Ways and Their Meaning...this was written I think after the First World War, but still a good way to understand French morals and manners.

Alastair Horne - Seven Ages of Paris...a superb history of Paris.

A.J. Liebling - Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris...inspiration to eat as much as you can while you're there.

Balzac - Pere Goriot...provincial Eugene de Rastignac learns about loyalty and corruption as he seduces his way to the top of the Parisian aristocracy. Skip the first 80 pages--he's just describing the furniture.

Adam Gopnik - Paris to the Moon...Upper West Side bobo breeds in Paris, returns. Read it last or skip it.

Some other books I recommend:

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, by Thad Carhart
Paris Stories, by Mavis Gallant
Paris, by Julian Green (see also his Journals; he lived briefly in Baltimore with his cousin)
Paris Was Our Mistress, by Samuel Putnam
Walks in Gertrude Stein's Paris, by Mary Ellen Jordan Haight
The Discovery of France, by Graham Robb

As all these suggestions pour in, I'm wondering whether Paris is the greatest literary city in the world -- or at least the most inspiring for writers. I've added one book on my own: Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris. It's a guide book to restaurants and food shops around the city. (I think I've gained five pounds just reading it.)

Also: Flaneur by Edmund White...inspiration to just get lost for a few hours

I am with M Bovary, who mentions The Flaneur by Edmund White. While Adam Gopnik's books on life in the city chronicle the upper-class expat family experience, Le Flaneur is a more lurid, solitary, poetic experience of walking the city and allowing its spirits envelop him.

Haussmann, or The Distinction, by Paul Lafarge, a novel about the man who redesigned Paris into a city of boulevards.