Rencontre avec David Bouklas (Boukie's bookstore in Périgueux)

Julie Rebière — 2026-04-06T19:24:50Z

Les élèves de 3° LCE (Langues et Cultures Européennes) ont pu, en décembre dernier, interviewer le charismatique libraire de la rue Taillefer, venu de New-York et passionné de littérature. Merci à lui pour son accueil très chaleureux.

Who is David Bouklas ?

His name is David. He is 38. He is from New-York, he is American but he's been living in France since 2005. He has 6 brothers and 6 sisters who are in America. He studied in USA, in New-York. When he finished his studies, he became a librarian in USA.

After traveling all over the world in England, Canada, Spain, France…, he settled in Perigueux with his wife and his children. Before coming to France, he has done a lot of jobs like for example a boxing coach or a food delivery rider, his favorite.

He loves to read French books and he has seen a lot of cities in France. He misses the climate in America because he loves storms, but he likes the climate in France. Before, he didn't speak French at all.

He opened his café because he's passionate about books.

France is 6 hours ahead of New-York. David likes it living in France, for its healthcare but for many other things. He prefers Perigueux than Bordeaux and loves Paris'vibes. Moreover, he finds French food a bit strange….

His bookstore

Boukie's is not just a café. You can read a book but you can also eat and drink. David doesn't have employees. In his shop, he works alone. To him, a good book seller is not someone who has a lot of knowledge of books but it's someone who is sociable, curious, interested and cheerful. He sells many types of books in about 8 different sections like biography, romance, comics, second-hand, self-care, fantasy, detective story, thriller, geography, children sections… He has around 4000-5000 books, only written in English and he has a lot of customers coming from a lot of foreign countries.

His passion for literature

His best-seller is « Death in Dordogne » which is a detective story. He didn't read all the books of his shop because he doesn't have the time but he knows all about them and he looks at interviews about the authors and reads reviews and comments about them all. One of the favourite authors of David is the famous Russian writer Dostoïevski. In addition, his favourite book is Tom Sawyer. He also loves ancient books and books from the 1990s.

He thinks Donald Trump is not a good person and that the situation of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is terrible and he doesn't want this to happen in France.

David Bouklas decided to work here because he had an opportunity to work here and he took it. He works only 7 hours a day and the hard things are to clean up the place and run the business. He actually owns the library and decided to name it « Boukie's » because from an early age, he was nicknamed « Bouklas » so he got inspired from it.

David left America in 2012. He is not homesick because he likes his life in France. He opened a bookstore because he liked it and it is a different job. He told us about the importance of reading and learning about things through literature intead of spending time on social media and in front of screens.

By The LCE Students

First Science workshop in English !

Julie Rebière — 2024-10-23T08:41:17Z

Dans le cadre de la semaine des sciences, des élèves de 3° et de Seconde ont pu rencontrer des étudiants en classe européenne (classes lycée euro et préparatoire en sciences) qui ont animé des ateliers d'expérimentation en sciences, en anglais, mardi 8 octobre. Merci aux enseignants de Physique Messieurs Ducassou et Burgunder d'avoir organisé cette rencontre.

"Last Tuesday, from 11am to noon, we attended a science workshop in English with the students of preparatory class and their teachers, Mr Burgunder and Mr Cassou, in the building B.

We attended science and physics experiments about the light of the sun, the property of a « magic » sand which was hydrophobic, how to make a balloon explode and a material that started fire, all this in English to discover science vocabulary and learn more about physics laws and science.

I liked it, sometimes it was difficult to understand all the vocabulary in english and some of the experiments were very difficult ! I think it is very important because in science, speaking english is a « must have »skill since all the physics studies are in english !

See below the experiments we observed (in French) :

legos magiques : mélange de différentes densités et des legos
livres et poids : effet des frottements/friction
transmission signal Laser : amplification et modulation d'un faisceau Laser par de la musique et réception puis amplification du signal transmis
chute d'un aimant dans un tube : effet inductif et frein électromagnétique
interférences et bulles de savon : superposition d'ondes lumineuses qui se réfléchissent sur les interfaces air/eau de la bulle de savon
ferrofluide : aimantation de nanoparticules de fer dans une solution sous l'effet d'un champ magnétique intense
effet gyroscopique : Moment cinétique : conservation (bouteille et tabouret, roue et tabouret) et effet d'un couple sur un moment cinétique (roue et corde)
polarisation : scotch et glucose : rotation de lumière polarisée lors de la traversée d'une solution sucrée
photoélasticité : polarisation et contrainte : modification des indices de réfraction (biréfringence) lors d'une contrainte (accroche du poids sur la règle).

I hope there will be other workshops during the year ! Thank you for reading my article ! "

Louise L'Honoré

Tuesday October the 15th

Cité Scolaire Bertran-de-Born

Rencontre avec David Bouklas (Boukie's bookstore in Périgueux)

First Science workshop in English !