What are bookstores outside of USA like?

[waryan]

I've never been out of the USA and at least where I live it's Barnes & Noble, Borders, Half-Price Books or Amazon- a few. I've spent more time in these book stores than at home some weeks and have grown to dislike them. Usually the books are in bad shape and the customer service is generally quite rude.

I'm curious if it's a similar set-up around the world, or if smaller independent book stores still are prevalent?

I'm in Texas so if you're in the USA but somewhere diff I'm just as curious, thanks all! :thumbs_up

[sprinks]

Well I'm in Australia and (at least where I live) the bookstores are lovely places. The most common one that I go to is Dymocks, and also Angus and Robertson. (Only because they're the closest) The staff are lovely and helpful and are happy to help and order in books and all. The stores are always neat and organised and clean, but welcoming. :)

[manolia]

Yeah same here. Staff is always helpful and lovely..they always help you find the book you are looking for and they suggest new books according to your tastes. You can also sit and read the book (well not the whole book, you know) and see if you like it before you buy it. There is also a place here where you can order coffee while you browse the book :) :thumbs_up . There are three bookstores i prefer. They are clean and neat and have a great variety. You can also order books without extra charges ;)

[DapperDrake]

I guess the UK isn't that much different form the US, we have Borders here - with starbucks inside no less :p
Waterstones is the other large bookstore but I think thats about it apart from smaller stores - there are smaller stores still around but less now that Borders has moved in.
Staff are fine and the books are usually in good condition, though in Borders they sometimes seem a bit knocked around.

[Niamh]

We have alot of different bookshops in Ireland. In Dublin we have;
Big High Street Shops
Eason
Hughes and Hughes (where i work)
Waterstones
Hodges Figgis
Chapters (amazing book shop!)
Borders (which only started opening shops here last year)
Small high street shops
Books Unlimited
Books Upstairs
Wise Owl
Dubary Books
to name a few. The likes of Eason and Hughes and Hughes you'd find mainly around the rest of the country, and Hughes and Hughes are in most of the main airports in ROI.

[Kafka's Crow]

I bought my copy of John Kennedy Toole's The Confederacy of Dunces from Barnes & Noble on Euclede Avenue, Barnes Jewish Hospital, St Louis, Missouri. I went to another huge B & N branch in St Louis, a huge massive one, accessible only by car. My favorite bookstore is located in Gower Street (Bloomsbury Square, near Russell Square), London. It is huge. It has three floors and there is a nice dedicated reading room on the top floor. Sitting near the window, browsing through my books, I could see London traffic moving below and famous spires and domes on the skyline. Being a U of London student, I used to get discount as well. I had some very funny and some very romantic encounters there. Oh yes, those were the days!

I love the bookshops on Charing Cross Road as well, specially for second hand books. You could buy some very exclusive pipe-tobacco from a tobacconist there. I don't smoke any more and I buy my books from Amazon now:bawling: :bawling: :bawling:

[kasie]

There isn't a 'proper' bookshop in the town where I live, only a WHSmith - which sells 'best sellers' and won't stock authors unless they sell in hundreds. My nearest book shop is a Borders in an out-of-town retail park and they have a Starbucks upstairs like DapperDrake's Borders - this is The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread and I can't think why no-one has thought of it before. (Mind you, the copy of Your Brain on Music that I bought the last time I was in there came with ready supplied coffee stains, which I wasn't too pleased with when I got it home.) Otherwise there is a Waterstones in the city along the motorway. The staff all seem very pleasant and knowledgable.

I used to like the old Foyles store in London, though their paying system baffled me and I could never find a till. Blackwells in Oxford is Book Heaven - as well as upper galleries, they have excavated downwards and there are open gallery cellars you can look down into. Waterstones in Oxford is good too, though it can take ages to pay because the assistants talk to the customers about their purchases, annoying if you are in a hurry (sorry, that's a contradiction in terms, isn't it?!) but good fun when it is your turn. The only Independent book shop I've been into in recent years was Albion Bookshop in Canterbury - that was a Book Heaven, too, with a very knowledgable proprietor who had the good sense to stock my friend's latest book as well as most of her back titles. (She was very pleased to hear about him. :) )

[ravilobo]

I am in US at the moment, I am amazed to find out that libraries are free! This one thing itself makes the stay worth here.

Only if the book is more than 500 pages I buy from a book store, else I go to the library here. The libraries have a 30 day return time. Some classics need more time.

When I was in Bahrain, I didn’t find any libraries there. Also very few people found reading interesting. Not many book stores as well. I tried order once from Amazon and it said that the country which I was in (Bahrain) is not there in their deliverable list!

In India, libraries are not free. Also they don’t have latest collection. But we have a huge network of pirated second hand road side book sellers! I used to buy from a guy who knew more about the books than myself, even though he didn’t read anuy of them!

In US, I have seen more people reading books than any other country. But US people read mostly light books, written by US authors. No Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy!

[LadyW]

I guess the UK isn't that much different form the US, we have Borders here - with starbucks inside no less :p
That's always a plus :p
The waterstones in Manchester usually have a Costa Coffee which is nice too.

Generally, I think books shops are great places - helpful staff, nice interior, air-conditioning and that lovely smell of new books :D

[Niamh]

I used to like the old Foyles store in London, though their paying system baffled me and I could never find a till.
I know one of the managers there. He left them and came to us in Dublin, then left us and went back to them.

We also have lots of tiny independant bookshops, not to mention some fab rare and antiquarian bookshops.

Also a lot of our bigger stores have cafes in them, and have for years. Eason has their own little cafe, i think the borders has Starbucks over here, and Hughes and Hughes cant make up their minds!:lol: SOme shops we have Insomnia, others we have Costa and the revamped larger shop we are getting in the Pavillions in Swords is going to have Starbucks.:D Thankfully we excaped having them in the airport.:p

[Pecksie]

I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and spend time in my hometown of Montevideo, Uruguay too. There are many public (i.e. free) libraries in both cities. As to bookstores, both cities have a few chains (e.g. Cúspide, El Ateneo and Yenny's in Buenos Aires, Mosca and Papacito in Montevideo), as well as many independent small ones. In some bookstores you can also sit down for a cup of coffee while browsing the book you've picked up.

Corrientes Avenue, in downtown Buenos Aires, is full of bookshops, often run-down and a bit shabby, but chock-full of unexpected treasures (used and new) at incredibly cheap prices. I love rummaging through them. On a smaller scale, Tristán Narvaja Street in Montevideo also has this kind of stores.

Most of the books these bookshops sell are of course in Spanish. In modern bookshops, which are usually spacious and tidy, shelves and tables with books written by local authors are often prominently displayed, as well as the latest work from international authors or those who are of special interest for some reason (e.g. having just won the Nobel!). Unfortunately, worthless best-sellers tend to be intensely marketed/displayed.

Although books enjoy tax exemptions in both countries, unless you go to the second-hand or cheapie stores I mentioned above, they are quite expensive by our standards. That may be because many of them are imported from Spanish publishing houses and/or because of the boundless greed of their owners :)

All this said, my favourite bookstore is still Amazon.com!!! No one can beat their prices!!!

[Sir Bartholomew]

here in the Philippines we have this huge franchise bookstore called National Bookstore. but i usually buy my books in second hand stores. there's this line of second hand shops scattered around manila and in other towns called Booksale.

[ben.!]

I'm in Australia, and the one's in my city that are awesome would have to be Angus & Robertson (a big Aussie bookstore chain), QBD (Great range!), Dymocks (another big Aussie bookstore chain) and then a huge four-floor Borders megastore in the inner city. I personally probably go to that huge Borders store the most, it has pretty much any book on shelf, or at least strives to have, you can order it in pretty easily and they tell you when they got it.

[RingoLass]

Where I live, it is a city known for it's independently owned shops and we have loads of book stores that carry the nicest, oldest books. My favorite has a spiral staircase I always sit on to read and I dangle my feet off the side, verrrrry nice!

[Joreads]

I'm in Australia, and the one's in my city that are awesome would have to be Angus & Robertson (a big Aussie bookstore chain), QBD (Great range!), Dymocks (another big Aussie bookstore chain) and then a huge four-floor Borders megastore in the inner city. I personally probably go to that huge Borders store the most, it has pretty much any book on shelf, or at least strives to have, you can order it in pretty easily and they tell you when they got it.

I love the QBD but being from NSW the online store is the only one that I can get to. They have some great sales. A&R have just lanuched a loyalty club which makes them a great choice to. When I am really in the mood to shop for books I head to the Pitt street mall in Sydney Dymocks, A&R and Borders all together bliss:)

[JBI]

In Toronto we have some small stores (which stay small) and a major chain under different names (Indigo, Chapters, Coles) that all sell unthinkable amounts of books. They are the size of Walmarts, and have restaurants, CDs, books, you name it. Everything from Travel Itinerary books to lesser known paper backs. Of course though, nothing comes close to Amazon.com

[Kafka's Crow]

In Toronto we have some small stores (which stay small) and a major chain under different names (Indigo, Chapters, Coles) that all sell unthinkable amounts of books. They are the size of Walmarts, and have restaurants, CDs, books, you name it. Everything from Travel Itinerary books to lesser known paper backs. Of course though, nothing comes close to Amazon.com

I've been an Amazon (UK) customer since the days when they were bookpages.co.uk. They have a huge collection but for a really good selection I'd suggest Frontlist. They have this amazing range of non-fiction books, have a look:

www.frontlist.com
http://www.frontlist.com/category/literary_studies

[Kafka's Crow]

Just browsed through frontlist's new website. I think they are bought off by Amazon. Another one bites the dust! This site used to be excellent and very different from the mammoth Amazon, now it is gone. All their links take you to Amazon. How easy it would be for some mega-rich group to buy off Amazon and start controlling information by dictating what is sold and read and what is eliminated.

[Dharmabeat]

Well we've got a couple of Waterstones here in Plymouth, not a bad place to pick up books if you've got the money, and the shops are complete with Costa Coffee inside.

There's WHSmiths too, but as some one said they only really stock best sellers, I had real trouble looking for a book I'd like from there when I received a voucher for Christmas.

I tend to primarily only use Amazon these days though, or the library :)

[John Goodman]

The closest book store to me (I live in Ottawa, Ontario) is Chapters which like someone said before me, is like a warehouse-sized store with countless amounts of books. I tend to shop there since I work at a Coles and my employee discount works there (30% off books, 40% off bestsellers :P).

[Tournesol]

I'm in Trinidad, and the best bookshop is a chain of stores called Nigel R. Khan Booksellers of the Nation. It's not as large as Chapters or Indigo [I've visited them both] but it does stock the latest bestsellers, fiction as well as non-fiction. And you can order books through them.

[dramasnot6]

We have very few "chain" bookstores in Perth. The first Borders was introduced here a little more than a year ago. Second-hand bookstores are popular, we have an excellent one called Elizabeths.

[Mark F.]

The only real book stores I go to in Paris are the English ones, W H Smith (the French store is different, a lot like Waterstone's and Dillon's). There's also a shop called Shakespeare & Co which is probably my favorite place in Paris, if you've read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway it might ring a bell as it was originally a library owned by Sylvia Plath where he borrowed books in the 20's. I love bookstores but don't go to them so much anymore since I buy books at the store where I work.

[Kafka's Crow]

The only real book stores I go to in Paris are the English ones, W H Smith (the French store is different, a lot like Waterstone's and Dillon's). There's also a shop called Shakespeare & Co which is probably my favorite place in Paris, if you've read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway it might ring a bell as it was originally a library owned by Sylvia Plath where he borrowed books in the 20's. I love bookstores but don't go to them so much anymore since I buy books at the store where I work.

Wow! Shakespeare & Co and modernism can not be separated. Its owner, Sylvia Beach, published Ulysses. She also published Beckett's Trilogy. Someday I will hop across the channel to go there. Although the location and owners are changed still it would be a pilgrimage nonetheless.

Correction: Beckett's Trilogy was published by The Grove Press (I have copies of the first edition sitting on my shelf right in front of my eyes still I made the above mistake!!!)

[Mark F.]

Yeah, Sylvia Beach, not Plath. Don't know why I said that. It's been owned by a friend of Ferlinghetti (City Lights founder) for 30 or 40 years.

[Page Sniffer]

Ah, books from 'round the world. I went to a really cool used book store once in Cairns (sorry, can't remember the name), and one in Vladivostok. The Auzzie book store was very hip in a "Beat" sorta way as I remember (visit was in 1998) and the Russians in the store were really curiously digging the fact that Americans (I was in the USMC then and in uniform in town) were browsing and buying (1995 goodwill visit). I live in Florida now and we have a great local bookstore called Chamblin's Bookmine that you can literally spend hours in without even realising it. I went after a girlfriend break-up and it helped me to get over it. "84 Charing Cross Road" is a favorite movie of mine as well and I hope to go one day...

[Kafka's Crow]

Ah, books from 'round the world. I went to a really cool used book store once in Cairns (sorry, can't remember the name), and one in Vladivostok. The Auzzie book store was very hip in a "Beat" sorta way as I remember (visit was in 1998) and the Russians in the store were really curiously digging the fact that Americans (I was in the USMC then and in uniform in town) were browsing and buying (1995 goodwill visit). I live in Florida now and we have a great local bookstore called Chamblin's Bookmine that you can literally spend hours in without even realising it. I went after a girlfriend break-up and it helped me to get over it. "84 Charing Cross Road" is a favorite movie of mine as well and I hope to go one day...

Oh the second-hand book shops! Charing Cross Road is OK but those shops are expensive. Still they give you the freedom to be with books for hours, in the cellars, in the attics, at the back of the shop. You can go anywhere. I can recall a spiral staircase in one of those shops lined with old books on right-hand side. I remember brown volumes with yellowish pages. I used to buy books from there long time ago. I remember having bought my copy of Vivian Mercier's Beckett/Beckett from Charing Cross Road in 1996. There are good used book shops around British Museum as well (Holborn, Tottenham Court Road areas). You can buy excellent new books at very cheap prices from there (backlist or returned stock). I bought my copy of the Norton Anthology of American Literature and Carolyn Allen's Following Djuna from there, both new and unused at a fraction of the cover-price.

Here is more info about Waterstones' Gower Street branch:

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/navigate.do?pPageID=200006

[Page Sniffer]

Kafka's Crow ~ Thanks for commenting on my post, and for recommending the link. I am a hopelessly romantic bibliophile, content to hibernate and rummage in the old shops. After mining an arm full of books, point me to a good pub with a booth, where I can submerge myself in pints and prose...:D I already have a few books published in London that are on my English shelf: Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (Faber & Faber); Walton's Lives (Falcon); Dylan Thomas (Dent); and A Hundred English Essays (Thos. Nelson and Sons) to name a few.

[Kafka's Crow]

Kafka's Crow ~ Thanks for commenting on my post, and for recommending the link. I am a hopelessly romantic bibliophile, content to hibernate and rummage in the old shops. After mining an arm full of books, point me to a good pub with a booth, where I can submerge myself in pints and prose...:D I already have a few books published in London that are on my English shelf: Sassoon's Memoirs of an Infantry Officer (Faber & Faber); Walton's Lives (Falcon); Dylan Thomas (Dent); and A Hundred English Essays (Thos. Nelson and Sons) to name a few.

I remember a second-hand book shop in University City, St Louis, Missouri. I bought a copy of Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence from there. It was a large shop, full of students from Washington University. That was back in September 2001. After a few days America changed for good and I stopped my visits (been there only once, in 2004, not a pleasant experience).

[kelby_lake]

Generally our (England) big store is Waterstones. You can also get a lot of books in WHSmith who do stationary mainly. Borders is more big-city based.

[cipherdecoy]

I mainly patronize Borders and Kinokuniya, particularly the latter because of its wide variety of books, and I don't buy books from second-hand bookstores because most of them are far too small and most of the books I intend to buy are not available there. Also, I like my books brand new :D

[EricP]

I'm a recent Peace Corps volunteer who served in Azerbaijan. The only bookstores I saw in the entire country were in Baku, the capital city. These bookstores were pretty pathetic: mostly books by or about the current president or his father (the previous president). There were a few novels available, but mostly for the expats so they were very expensive. I depended completely on the library at the Peace Corps office and packages sent from home! It's great to be back! :)

[kratsayra]

The only real book stores I go to in Paris are the English ones, W H Smith (the French store is different, a lot like Waterstone's and Dillon's). There's also a shop called Shakespeare & Co which is probably my favorite place in Paris, if you've read A Moveable Feast by Hemingway it might ring a bell as it was originally a library owned by Sylvia Plath where he borrowed books in the 20's. I love bookstores but don't go to them so much anymore since I buy books at the store where I work.

Although there is I guess only one "real" Shakespeare & Co - they have some other stores over here in the US too. And that is my favorite sort of bookstore - well-stocked academic bookstores that have a good deal of literary fiction as well. I guess I'm lucky to be near New York to have my pick of all sorts of bookstores. But there are pretty good independent bookstores in many (although I doubt all) university towns and cities throughout the US. I'm a big fan of midwestern university towns. :p


I'm a recent Peace Corps volunteer who served in Azerbaijan. The only bookstores I saw in the entire country were in Baku, the capital city. These bookstores were pretty pathetic: mostly books by or about the current president or his father (the previous president). There were a few novels available, but mostly for the expats so they were very expensive. I depended completely on the library at the Peace Corps office and packages sent from home! It's great to be back! :)

I'm glad you mention this. I was going to bring up my experience traveling in Cameroon, which is similar in terms of bookstores. It is just incredibly hard to get a hold of any books, period. The bookstores had (this is 5 years ago, dunno if it's different now) mostly school readers and very few novels. University students do their reading almost entirely by photocopying the one or two copies of the book that the professor owns, or something of that sort.

So well-stocked bookstores of any sort are quite a luxury when compared to some parts of the world.

[Jane's Nemesis]

Book shops are book shops...aren't they? There's a really good second hand one in the city I live in, but the owners are so grouchy...when you walk in they look as though they'd rather see you dead than touching their books. Think 'Black Books' (the British TV comedy), but not funny.

[bethps]

I live in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Here we have many bookstores. Some are big, like Saraiva, which also sells Cds, Dvds, and where you can drink coffee while perusing a book; some are small, specialized in a definite genre like the Laissue brothers that used to sell esoteric books; others sell used books and rarities; and of course you can buy on-line via Amazon or Submarino

[Erichtho]

Book shops are book shops...aren't they? There's a really good second hand one in the city I live in, but the owners are so grouchy...when you walk in they look as though they'd rather see you dead than touching their books. Think 'Black Books' (the British TV comedy), but not funny.

This is why I don't like smaller bookstores in general. They observe every of your steps and treat you like a housebreaker. I never feel comfortable being there, because I like to sit down and read for a while and often I decide to not buy the book in the end...

I order second hand books via internet, but new books I buy in bookstores. The bookstore I usually go to is medium-sized, has a comfortable reading corner with couch and armchairs and belongs to a bigger chain.
There is a section where local writers are promoted (also those who don't write in the standard language) and they have from time to time interesting authors coming for a reading.
The foreign language section is too small for my taste, with a majority of the books there being school-related. Only in two languages, English and Russian, do they also offer other books, but those are pretty much exclusively recent bestsellers or translations of books originally written in German (:confused:).
Oh, and that bookstore has also a small corner for second hand books.

[amanda_isabel]

There are a few chain bookstores here in the Philippines, including National, GoodWill, etc, but most of them don't have a branch here in Baguio City. National is pretty well stocked with titles, but around here second hand books are much cheaper, and are in decent, if not great, condition anyway, plus, I love bookhunting in those stores. You never know what you might find. :)

P.S. Chain bookstores here keep their stuff, for the most part, wrapped in plastics or behind counters so people don't read in the store. It's the second hand stores that leave you be sitting on a pile of books. :)