Bookstores Around the World

The strange wistfulness of used bookstores is called “vellichor” and is something that is strongly felt by many. An old bookstore filled with rare and used books is somehow infused with the passage of time and can be overwhelming as it’s filled with thousands of books you’ll never have time to read. Each book is an entire universe and, as the pages are read and turned, a new world is revealed. If we want to learn about the world and the people and cultures within it, we can start by reading and will be transported anywhere we wish.

Shakespeare and Company in Paris is one of the world’s most famous bookstores; there have been several incarnations of this particular shop throughout the city and it is now located on the rue de la Bûcherie. The original owner of the shop, Sylvia Beach, published James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses in 1919 and, from then on, it was a haunt for literary legends such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and James Baldwin. City Lights Books in San Francisco has been proclaimed as the country’s first bookstore comprised entirely of paperbacks and was founded in 1953 by Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. On the east coast, The Strand in New York City offers an impressive eighteen miles of books.

Atlantis Books in Santorini, Greece welcomes its visitors with a gorgeous view of the Aegean Sea while the Liberia Acqua Alta in Venice is known as the “floating bookstore” because the books are secured in plastic bins in gondolas and boats so, when the tides rise, they actually do float. Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal is often called one of the most beautiful in the world and is said to have inspired J.K. Rowling’s description of Hogwarts in her phenomenal Harry Potter book series. For more information on famous bookstores around the world, visit: https://www.thisisinsider.com/best-bookstores-in-the-world-2016-10.