BootsnAll Travel Community

OK, when I settled in Venice for a long stretch, I didn't realize that there was a serious lack of cheap English books there. At the hostel where I was staying, guests would occasionally leave paperbacks, but I am a fast, voracious reader - I'm a librarian, for chrissakes! Need more input, Stephanie! So, I probably should have settled in Florence, which has the fabulous Paperback Exchange, instead. If I had been interested in South Asia back then, I would have gone to Kathmandu, which has at least 2 used book stores - Tantric Books and Barnes & Noble-no relation to the chain. There is also the one and only Pilgrims Books - not a used book store but a place where I could and did spend hours browsing. So, any favorite bookstores in non-English-speaking countries?

The Globe in prague. It's rather small though. Prague has some nice ones: Shakespeare and Sons, Big Ben, Anagram.

I really liked Saint George's bookshop in Berlin. They have a very good selection of used books in English. The store also hosts an English-speaking movie each week.

I also found this useful summary of English-language bookstores in Berlin from the Berlin Paper

When I was in Paris, I stumbled upon this charming bookstore called Shakespeare & Co. (they had a very dreamy Brit accented bookseller, sighhh). Don't know the history of it but apparently it's a legendary Parisian book store that Hemmingway frequented (I think..). There was this crazy tourist couple that took tons of photos inside... Mostly new books however, the used books are outside but not a great collection.

I also found this: Directory of Bookstores in Paris. Of note, of all the European countries I have visited (grand total of three, heheee), I was impressed how well-read Parisians were.. or at least, the majority of book readers in the subways compared to Berlin and Amsterdam. But it's sooo difficult to find English-language books even in ordinary bookstores around Paris.

Of course, here in my hometown -- we do have one used bookstore. It's mostly misses than hits but I have recently found the first edition of the hardcover book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson for oh, only USD3!!

In Hiroshima, there's the Outsider. Despite the pact that the site is entirely in Japanese, they have a large selection of English books for saale at reasonablish prices.

quote:

Originally posted by cayce:
When I was in Paris, I stumbled upon this charming bookstore called Shakespeare & Co. (they had a very dreamy Brit accented bookseller, sighhh). Don't know the history of it but apparently it's a legendary Parisian book store that Hemmingway frequented (I think..).

The one Hemingway and Joyce frequented (Slyvia Beach's) closed shop before WW2. The current one (George Whitman's) has been around since the 50's. Allen Ginsberg used to hang out there though, so that's something.