My girlfriend is one of the editors of a Chinese-language arts and culture magazine based here in Taipei. She just told me her next story will be on particular bookstores around the world that stand out for one reason or another: ambiance, theme, architecture, etc.
I figured there’s no better place to start (even though it’s not my article) than Cafe Society.
Anyone got any suggestions I could tell her?
Thanks in advance for the brownie points.
Powell’s, in Portland, Oregon. The main store covers a city block, and there are maps for first-timers to find their way around. More than a million volumes, new and used. Technical books have a store of their own, as big as most general bookstores. Everything is organized, and the staff know what they’re talking about. Best damn bookstore in the world.
The Strand, in NYC.
Definitely this children’s book store in Beijing.
City Lights in San Francisco.
thanks for the suggestions so far, keep them coming.
I just want to say that I’m especially interested if anyone knows of bookstores that are known not just for their collection or their history but the actual experience of going there (kind of like the Beijing books story Kayeby mentioned). Are there more bookstores that are almost like their own environment?
I know that’s a hard question to ask, because, I can completely forget about the outside world just going into a Barnes and Noble…
remember, also, language isn’t a problem. It’s always easy to find bookstores in the US, UK, France. I’d like to know more about South America, other European countries (seems like they’d have some great ones in Scandanavia, feel like I went to one in Sweden), Asia, etc.
I’ve been to Powell’s and to the Strand, and I have to say that I don’t think the Strand is anywhere in the same league. Powell’s shelves are magical: they contain books that you loved as a child and had forgotten about, books that you’ve been looking for for years, books that you’d never even heard of before by your favorite author. I love Powell’s.
Daniel
Cody’s in Berkeley. The largest independent bookstore west of the Mississippi.
Shakespeare and Company in Paris. A landmark institution, where impoverished travellers could once exchange a day’s labour for a night’s rest among the shelves.
I used to go to Manny’s Books & Arts in New Paltz, NY (it’s now closed). It was quite an experience. The main business of the store was selling art supplies. But Manny also sold used books. His method of displaying these books was simple - he put up shelves wherever they would fit in the store and put the books wherever they would fit on the shelves. Beyond that nothing - he didn’t have a seperate section for books, he didn’t divide them up into genres, he didn’t even alphabetize them. You just spent a hour or so wandering around his store and found books at random.
But probably the strangest experience I ever had in a bookstore was in Naples, NY. I was driving through town and saw a used book store, so I stopped. I looked around for a while and found a couple of books I liked but they had no prices marked. So I asked the woman in the store what her prices were - a seemingly safe question but a big mistake. The woman then began telling me that her books had no prices - she didn’t believe in prices or money. She went on to tell me much more than I wanted to hear about her personal philosophy that money was the root of all evil and society would be so much better if all transactions were made by barter. She concluded by telling me that most of the people in town thought she was crazy and, while I didn’t say so, I could sort of see their point - if you don’t want to participate in the money system, wouldn’t it make more sense to live on a farm or something rather than try to run a store? But anyway, she absolutely refused to take the money that I offered to “trade” for the books. I didn’t have anything in my car I felt like giving up and she declined my offer to let me buy some groceries for her from a nearby supermarket (apparently she had some kind of dispute with them). Finally, she admitted she did have one place in her store where she allowed money - she kept a jar where she collected money for charity. In exchange for me donating some money to the charity jar, she would agree to give me the books. I dropped in some money as she stood with her back turned so she wouldn’t have to watch.
The legendary Beguiling comics and manga store in Toronto. Two floors of comics, art, manga, and how-to books from all the great streams of comics art in the world (French, Japanese, American, Korean, Chinese…)
I’ve never been there, but how about the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye?
Another vote for Powell’s in Portland, OR. I have only once failed to find the book I was looking for there, and the staff took my name and number and I got the next copy that passed through their hands. Plus, they do both new and used books, so you can thumb through fifteen used copies of whatever you’re looking for and find the one that has the perfect balance of cheap and beat up. I’ve even walked out of there with copies signed by the author that wound up on their shelves. You can browse for days. It’s glorious to walk through the store and see books stacked up ten feet above your head.
Yeah right. I’m gonna need a cite for this claim. Check the map in the link. One city block, three stories. Walls that were knocked out as the store expanded. Unbelievable until you see it.
Powell’s Books 7 stores total. One city of books, one technical book store, one store just for home and garden (cookbooks), one at the airport, and three other satellite stores.
Here is what a few people you may have heard of say about Powell’s
It’s not aesthetically pleasing but I have fond memories of New England Mobile Book Fair. It’s where we all went to pick up everything we needed for school-esp. all the overpriced standardised testing books. I didn’t go to college in the area but some of my high school classmates were still getting books there well into university.
Basically a huge warehouse of books. You practically need a map.
I was last in Paris in 1994, but I believe I went into this store. Is it in St. Michel? If so, then I concur on your selection of this wonderful bookstore!
I don’t know if it would win any awards, but I adore Bookman’s Alley in Evanston, IL, just north of Chicago. It’s a new and used bookstore, both rare signed first editions and dogeared copies of Judy Blume. They also have rugs and antiques and great seating and nooks to rest with a book for a while. The clerks never bug you or make you feel like you’re stealing their space or times by reading, even if you don’t end up buying. The organization is a little spotty, but they somehow know where everything is. It’s pretty big, and it winds around several rooms in this strange Diagon Alley-esque perversion of space and time, and it just SMELLS like an old bookstore should.
Blackwell’s Bookshop in Oxford England. An awe-inspiring bookstore, absolutely huge with a fantastic selection – at least it made me weep when I visited many years ago. Not sure if it has changed.
Oh, hey, Bookman’s Alley was in The Time Traveler’s Wife. i didn’t know it was real. It sounds fascinating.