Bookstores are cozy places--soft lights, earthy carpets, walls lined with books. Usually, you don't just buy a book when you go to one. Instead, you relax and take your time browsing titles, flipping through pages. 

But this is also an increasingly outdated model. For a while now, bookstores have been shuttering. Many people prefer the haste and ease of Amazon, which is by far the largest book seller in the world.

But what if a hybrid model emerged--one that combined the reprieve of a bookstore with the instant access of Amazon?

In Paris, within one of the most vaunted literary sections of the city, a famed bookseller is trying to do just that. 

Libraire des Puf, or Les Puf, has been around since 1921 and is part of a group that handles all aspects of the book trade--publishing, distribution, marketing, selling. More than a decade ago, its bookstore in the Latin Quarter went out of business. 

Now it's reopening with a completely new approach. 

There aren't many books in this bookstore. 

It's very tiny--about the size of a studio apartment.

There are tablets and a small cafe. Patrons come to the store, pick up a tablet and can browse through millions of titles--either through a direct search or by browsing curated guides. When a book is found, you bring the tablet to a small machine called the Espresso Book Machine and it prints it for you. As you wait for the book to print, you can get a cup of coffee and can add a personal handwritten inscription. 

It's still cozy, but instead of being limited by shelf space, budgets, or curatorial discretion, the tablets hold basically any book a person would want. The new model also allows Le Puf to bring back books that had gone out of print.

Ultimately, this model could be a powerful counterbalance to Amazon. It doesn't mean that stores have to excavate their shelves; a book-printing machine can easily coexist with actual books. It just means that readers won't have to worry about their favorite bookstore not having what they want and bookstores can attract a wider range of people. 

Plus, it's a cool technology.  

Maybe this technology could be taken beyond commerce into schools, libraries and other learning centers. With the Espresso Book Machine, students everywhere could gain access to a vast array of books and the learning gaps around the world could start to close.