Saturday, 31 May 2014

Beautiful Bookstores



This is an extract of an article by Emily Temple on Jan 1, 2013.  To see the full article click here.



A gorgeous converted Dominican church gives the power of reading its due diligence. Selexyz Bookstore, Maastricht, Holland


This divine neo-gothic bookstore, opened in 1906, contains what we consider to be the ultimate definition of a stairway to heaven. Livraria Lello, Porto, Portugal



This majestic converted 1920s movie palace uses theatre boxes for reading rooms and draws thousands of tourists every year. Librería El Ateneo Grand Splendid, Buenos Aires, Argentina


For those browsers not as impressed by architecture as they are by the beauty of books upon books upon books in narrow hallways — not to mention a place to nap. Shakespeare & Company, Paris, France


This store has a flying bike and books to the ceiling. Need we say more? Ler Devagar, Lisbon, Portugal

I hope you enjoyed those - I just wish I could be there and browse some of those shelves...   Do you have a beautiful bookstore near you?

14 comments:

  1. I thoroughly enjoyed your selection CJ and Emily Temple's original article. I have actually done the tourist thing (accidentally as it happened at the time) and been in Shakespeare's in Paris and, of course, bought a book (it is the English Bookshop as the name implies). I would like to think that it was one of my favourite books T E Carhart's The Piano Shop on the Left Bank but it wasn't.

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  2. Oh my, I've never seen bookshops like that. What a treat it would be to visit any one of them.

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  3. We have standard big box bookstores, and a couple of used book places, but nothing like this. My idea of heaven is a bookstore, but instead of a romance section (because i don't read romance novels), i'd have my Sweetie there!

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  4. I really miss bookstores, many of them have closed here.
    I want to visit that bookstore in England, the one that I wrote a post about, where the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters were first recognized. Doubt I will get up to the north of England, you will have to visit it for me!

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  5. There used to be a wonderful one called Bertram Rota in Covent Garden but eventually the whole area became too expensive and touristy and it's now a clothes shop, Next or something! It had a kind of glass roof and was very tall - I don't know what it had originally been. I loved it there.

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  6. Of course, after sending you the note this morning (with the 'g' left off offering) I was able to read this post in its entirety. There some sort of law about that!
    I have been to two of these bookstores - what a lovely feeling it was to recognise that. Here in Victoria we have Munro's Books, a city institution, established in an old Bank of Montreal building. I get a kick out of browsing on Amazon and then taking my list to a real bookstore to make my purchase. If we all buy on Amazon we'll soon have no bookstores to frequent.

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    1. Just to complete the confusion - Adrian got a message saying there was malware on my blog!! Then Kay told me that Nan from Letters from a Hill Farm got a message saying message had been truncated. And Flamblogger was also warned not to go near me. I wonder if I am infectious or just have a headache? I shall see if there is anything I can clean-up but in the meantime I hope it doesn't put people off coming back to check if I'm ill or just malingering...

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    2. No problems this end Bruv.

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  7. Just love libraries too, the little reading nook is so delightful, could while away some time there !
    I still think the Picton Reading Room in Liverpool takes some beating, always take visitors to the area over there.

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  8. How wonderful! I must try to find you a photo of the interior of the Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington. At 20, I thought it was the most beautiful building I'd ever seen. xoxox

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  9. I've never been in a bookshop or library as impressive as those - and indeed, bookshops that sell only books are becoming increasingly rare (as are libraries that offter only books, come to think of it!) But the library in my birth town, back in my teens (late 60s/early 70s), did have a sort of round room with high ceiling and a balcony, which gives me a kind of nostalgic feeling about that sort of place. As I remember it, on the ground floor they had the novels and up on the balcony + in an adjoining room they had the non-fiction books. In the adjoining room they also had some armchairs where you could sit and listen to LP vinyl records in headphones. Two people could listen to the same record - I remember that because a friend and I used to go there and do that!

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  10. I've never seen anything like this. Thanks for the post!

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  11. These are all incredibly beautiful, and I do wish that someday I could visit them all.
    Surrounded by such beauty, I could easily slip into the pages of a good book for hours.

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  12. I would move into any one of them (excluding the last one with the suspended bicycle - that one does nothing for me) in a heartbeat! My favorite is the one with the blue velvet chair and the books all topsy turvy.... I could totally live there.

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