Singular shops
With the advent of online book buying and e-books, many have predicted the eventual disappearance of stores where you can put down money and buy a book. To that, we book-loving stalwarts say, “NEVER!” Nothing beats walking through a bookshop and looking at all the covers, picking tomes up and turning them over, the smell of ink on paper, conversations with strangers about authors…it all conspires to create an experience like few others. Add to that a remarkable converted space in which the shop is housed and we’re talking bibliophile bliss. We're grateful that there are plenty of beautiful bookstores still out there, but we love the following for their most-unusual settings.
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1. The Book Barge
Books on a boat? Sounds great. Books on a barge that roams the inland waterways of the U.K.? Oh gosh, yes. That's what you'll find when you visit The Book Barge, a 60-foot canal boat bookshop, moored in Staffordshire and operated by Sarah Henshaw. Inspired by the Slow Food movement, Henshaw says, “We hope to promote a less hurried and harried lifestyle of idle pleasures, cups of tea, conversation, culture and, of course, curling up with an incomparably good Book Barge purchase. I hoped that by creating a unique retail space, customers would realise how independent bookshops can offer a far more pleasurable shopping experience than they're likely to find online or on the discount shelves at supermarkets.” To which we say, “amen and ahoy!"
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2. Selexyz Dominicanen
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
For those who consider bookstores sacred, welcome to Selexyz Dominicanen: a 13th century Dominican church in Maastricht, Holland, that now offers books instead of redemption. Up until 2007, the majestic space was being used to store bicycles (it is Holland, after all). But then the glorious gothic building was given an interior transformation by the Amsterdam-based design firm Merkx+Girod Architecten; the result is nothing short of a miracle.
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3. El Ateneo Grand Splendid
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The name sums it up nicely; grand and splendid indeed! Designed for the music impresario Max Glucksmann, this show-stopping theatre space was opened as the Teatro Gran Splendid in Buenos Aires in 1919. After nearly a century of hosting tango masters and a cinema, the magnificent space was leased by the publishing conglomerate Grupo Ilhsa in 2000. Following a thorough renovation and conversion, the former theater now serves as the group’s flagship store; more than 1 million people visit El Ateneo annually. Bravo!
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4. La Caverne aux Livres
Few things make as romantic a pairing as books and trains. And while much of that has to do with their shared connotations of traveling (whether actual or metaphysical), even books coupled with a stationary train car are a magical combination. At La Caverne aux Livres (the cave of books) in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris, an old postal train station and several mail-sorting train cars have become home to a ranging collection of used books for sale. Visitors often spend hours looking through the broad selection there, amidst an atmosphere of old letters and dreams of faraway places.
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5. Barter Books
If you think a train-car bookshop is romantic, Barter Books will make you swoon so hard it might hurt. Housed in an 1887 Victorian train station in the historic English market town of Alnwick, Barter Books offers visitors not only an incredible collection of books to browse, but a remarkable setting to do it in. Complete with working fireplaces, stunning 40-foot murals, stuffed chairs and sofas, tea rooms and model trains which chug along atop the shelves, the shop retains many of the station’s original features. But beyond the treasures within its seven rooms, Barter may be best known as the driving force behind one of the modern world's most iconic memes. When going through an old box of books the owners stumbled across an unpublished WWII poster. They displayed it to great response and began printing copies; since then the slogan has become one of the rallying cries of the new millennium, otherwise known as: “Keep calm and carry on.”
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6. Livraria Lello
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
While the other shops listed here are notable for their use of converted space, Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal stands out for a different reason. It was actually built to be a bookstore...and it remains one of the most spectacular purpose-built bookshops in the world. While we’ve become accustomed to banal chain bookstores, Livraria Lello is unusual for its elaborate - and we mean elaborate - architectural ornamentation. The shop, built in 1881, includes a dramatic “stairway to heaven,” plentiful stained glass, intricate wood carvings, columns, pressed copper and an extraordinary facade. And extra props for the “secret” coffee shop tucked away on the second floor where shoppers can indulge not only in coffee, but port and cigars as well. Oh, plus books!
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7. Bart's Books
Visiting Bart’s Books in Ojai, California, is akin to going to your friend’s really cool 55-year-old house and hanging out in their really cool patio…along with more than 55,000 used books. Leave it to the Golden State to have an outdoor bookstore; and one that conducts sales by the “leave the money in the coin box” honour system after hours, no less. Opened in 1964 by Gary Schlichter, the shop is a destination for people from all over California; open or closed, it makes no difference!
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8. John K. King Used & Rare Books
Photo: Facebook
While converting former industrial space into luxury lofts has become the hallmark of hipster gentrification, John King was hip to the jive long before. Back in 1983, King bought the abandoned, four-story Advance Glove factory in downtown Detroit, thinking it would be suitable for his book-selling business. Fast forward a few decades, and the former factory now holds more than a million used and rare books. And so excellent is the collection, that earlier this year Business Insider named it one of the best must-see bookstores in the world. It may look a little rough-and-tumble on the outside, but we know you'd never judge a book by its cover. [Facebook Page]
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9. Parisian bouquinistes
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Bookshops in boxes may not seem that charming on the surface, but when this particular setting is considered, hello enchanted book-buying. Why? Because these boxed-up bookshops line the banks of the river Seine in Paris; on the right bank from the Pont Marie to the Quai du Louvre, and on the left bank from the Quai de la Tournelle to Quai Voltaire. Stretching for almost 2 miles along the world’s most romantic river, there are 900 green boxes from which 240 “bouquinistes” offer some 300,000 old books and other assorted paper ephemera. Can you say, “j'adore”?
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10. Libreria Acqua Alta
We started this list with a floating bookshop, and we end it with a twist on the concept. Libreria Acqua Alta is located on a canal in Venice, Italy; and while it is housed on terra firma, it is often flooded. But those Venetians are nothing if not resourceful - and when life gives you high water (which is what “acqua alta” means), break out the gondolas! And bathtubs and row boats and whatever else you’ve got that floats. While many of the books are stacked on raised shelves, the bulk of them are “shelved” in flood-proof containers that protect them. And if selecting books from a gondola on a canal in Venice isn’t enough to put you in a severe state of reader's rapture, perhaps the shop’s clowder of cats will help. Books, boats, cats, Venice? We're going, come hell or high water.
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Top image: The Book Barge. Credit: The Book Barge/Facebook.
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