What were the first steps of Librairie Ulysse? Catherine wrote on the bookstore’s website: “After traveling for ten years on every continent, I stopped and told myself: ‘What am I going to do for a living?’ I was aware of the need to insert myself in a sociey in one way or another. I made a choice by deduction, refusing to have any boss or employee.

Remembering my grandfathers, one being a navigator, and the other one being a bookseller in Perigord

Back in Paris — I already lived in Île Saint-Louis — I looked for a place, gathered information about the job of bookseller, did some internships in other bookstores, wrote index cards, and thought about a name for this new business.

One morning, while going out to buy my daily newspaper, I looked up and saw the sign of the bookstore ‘Ulysse’ [Ulysses in French], a reference to Joyce, at number 35 of street Saint-Louis-en-l'Île. ‘Here is a name!’, I told myself. I climbed two stairs to get into this very small 16m2 store with a single beam. Four guys played poker. ‘What a cute bookstore!’, I said. ‘It is for sale’, one of the players answered without looking up. 48 hours later, I was a bookseller. This was in September 1971. The first bookstore in the world specializing in travel was born.

Twenty years later, I was hit by real estate development, like a number of people, and I had to move out. Luckily, my stubborn side — I am a Taurus ascendant Taurus — gave me the strength to move my bookstore a few meters away into a larger place, on number 26 of street Saint- Louis-en-l'Île, in a quite uncommon building. First, this was the first building in which I lived in Île Saint-Louis. Second, this building formerly hosted a bank branch that was famously burglarized by Spaggiari.”

# In 1999

Even after she became a bookseller, Catherine went on traveling every summer, usually sailing on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic or the Pacific, while her boyfriend was running the bookstore.

She has been a member of the French National Union of Antiquarian and
Modern Bookstores (SLAM: Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et
Moderne), the Explorers' Club (Club des Explorateurs) and the
International Club of Long-Distance Travelers (Club International des
Grands Voyageurs).

Catherine started the bookstore’s website in early 1999, as a virtual travel in the field of computing, despite knowing very little about computers.

She wrote in late 1999: "My site is still pretty basic and under construction. Like my bookstore, it is a place to meet people before being a place of business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a lot of my time and I earn hardly any money, but that doesn't worry me… I am very pessimistic though, because it is killing off specialist bookstores."