Recognizing the transporting power of great stories, we decided to celebrate our love for many of their keepers—independent bookstores around the world. Some, like Livraria Lello in Portugal, are fantastically historic; others, like Montreal’s Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, skew more modern and have a unique focus (graphic novels and comic books). But they all have one thing in common: They’re infinitely more rewarding to explore than an online bookshop or ecommerce site. From a “bookbarge” in London to an indie publisher in Tokyo, these are the coolest, coziest, quaintest bookshops across the globe—and the perfect place to find a literary souvenir on your travels.
Livraria Lello
Porto, Portugal
A bookstore with ticketed entry? You may scoff, until you get inside: The neo-Gothic facade and art nouveau interior—stained glass ceiling, soaring shelves—and a crimson spiraling staircase (the inspiration for the moving staircases in the Harry Potter films) make Porto’s dramatic Livraria Lello a destination unto itself. Don’t forget to buy a book! —Laura Dannen Redman, Afar contributor
Yu and Me Books
New York City
Any time friends or family members visit me in New York, I send them out to explore our still-thriving indie bookshop scene: the 97-year-old Strand for its legendary “18 miles of books,” the Ripped Bodice for romance novels, and Books Are Magic, which is owned by the novelist Emma Straub. My latest obsession has been Yu and Me Books, which opened in 2021 as the first bookshop in Chinatown owned by an Asian American woman—and then promptly closed in the summer of 2023 after a devastating fire. The community rallied, and local restaurants, bars, music venues, and other bookstores (how cool is that?) raised funds to help with the rebuilding efforts, and Yu and Me emerged from the ashes on Mulberry Street to continue its mission of selling books focused on immigrant narratives and especially the Asian diaspora. —Nicholas DeRenzo, contributing editor
El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires has often been called the most beautiful bookstore in the world.
Photo by guillermo_celano/Shutterstock
El Ateneo Grand Splendid
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires’s largest and most famous librería (bookstore) is El Ateneo Grand Splendid, housed in a palatial 1919 theater in the upscale Barrio Norte and widely known as one of the world’s most beautiful bookshops. The more than 100-year-old landmark building retained its ornate balconies, fresco-painted dome ceiling, and red velvet stage curtains when it reopened in 2000 as the flagship store for the Argentinian publishing house Grupo Ilhsa. El Ateneo is packed with more than 120,000 books (in addition to thousands of movies and records)—and it’s often just as packed with people. —Sarah Buder, Afar contributor
Daunt Books
London, England
Daunt has a handful of locations across London, all worth a visit, but the Marylebone branch—in a former Edwardian bookshop—is particularly appealing. Set in a long, light-filled three-story space with oak balconies and a stained glass window, its choices are arranged by country. So whether you’re after a guidebook, nonfiction, or something escapist, you can really lose yourself in your chosen destination. —Tim Chester, deputy editor
London’s Word on the Water may lack space—but it more than makes up for it in charm.
Photo by Mauro Gea/Shutterstock
Word on the Water
London, England
My favorite thing to do in London is stroll along the Regent’s Canal on a sunny day. The first time I followed this route, I stumbled upon the quirky “bookbarge,” Word on the Water, which occupies a 1920s Dutch boat moored near the shiny, new Coal Drops Yard development. It looks so much like a setting from The Wind in the Willows that you half expect the bookseller to be an anthropomorphic badger smoking a pipe. Once you duck inside, it’s a cramped little treasure trove, lined with leather-bound and newer volumes, old typewriters, potted plants, and cozy, tufted leather chairs. Hot tip: If that sunny day suddenly turns blustery or drizzly, as is often the case in London, it’s an excellent place to sit and wait it out. —N.D.
Bücherbogen
Berlin, Germany
Before you begin browsing, give yourself at least 10 minutes to walk around Bücherbogen and marvel at the space: Housed beneath S-Bahn train tracks at Savignyplatz, the store has arched brick ceilings, cool lighting, and a red hallway. With floor-to-ceiling racks full of books on art, design, photography, film, and architecture, the specialized bookstore is exceedingly well-stocked. —Katherine LaGrave, deputy editor
Dead Souls
Dunedin, New Zealand
Named after a novel by Russian author Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls sells secondhand books from its small shop in the second-largest city of New Zealand’s South Island. Despite its limited square footage, it keeps 20,000 books in stock, which means you’ll encounter walls and walls of books, piled literally from ceiling to floor whenever you walk in. —Ciera Velarde, Afar contributor
Boekhandel Dominicanen occupies a centuries-old Gothic church.
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Boekhandel Dominicanen
Maastricht, Netherlands
Boekhandel Dominicanen is housed in a 13th-century Gothic monastery church in Maastricht, near the southeastern border with Belgium. The striking independent bookstore, which opened in 2014, still maintains the stained glass windows, stone-vaulted ceilings, and elaborate wall paintings, both frescoes and seccoes, that originally decorated the more than 700-year-old church. Boekhandel Dominicanen’s collection includes thousands of new and secondhand books in Dutch and English, plus a music department with CDs, DVDs, and vinyl records. The former church’s altar now hosts a small bookshop café, Coffeelovers, where you can order a mean cup of Dutch coffee. —S.B.
The Book Lounge
Cape Town, South Africa
“What a cozy, friendly place” reads . . . every review of the Book Lounge, ever. Cape Town’s beloved independent bookstore delivers on its promise of great coffee, passionate staff, and fantastic books. But it also serves as a spot for candid conversations on challenging topics, like power and patriarchy in South Africa, keeping dialogue alive and well. —L.D.R.
Wayword & Wise
Mumbai, India
Wayword & Wise isn’t the bookstore you visit on vacation to pick up an English-language best seller. Here, you’ll stock up on beautifully designed, souvenir-worthy editions of classics, or book-nerd out with the owners and let them guide you through the packed shelves to must-read authors from countries around the world. —Maggie Fuller, Afar contributor
Shakespeare and Company’s iconic green storefront is one of the most popular landmarks on the Left Bank in Paris.
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Shakespeare & Company
Paris, France
Miles of heaving shelves and hidden corners to rest in with a new tome make this Left Bank landmark an essential Paris stop. A hub for influential thinkers since it opened in the 1950s, it’s also hosted thousands of “tumbleweeds,” resident writers who stay under its roof in return for reading a book a day and helping out in the shop. —T.C.
Shibuya Publishing and Booksellers
Tokyo, Japan
Part of the appeal of this hip store in Oku-Shibuya is browsing new and used books by theme—you always end up finding something you’ve never heard of. Though most titles are in Japanese, there’s a fair selection in English, and the graphic tees and tote bags need no translation. —K.L.G.
Cafebrería El Péndulo
Mexico City, Mexico
There are seven locations of this CDMX mini-chain, some of which have cafés and bars inside. The Polanco and Roma outposts are particularly gorgeous (and Instagram friendly), with abundant sunlight and potted plants—this is the opposite of a dusty old bookseller—but I’m partial to the one in San Ángel. It’s all clean lines, wooden slats, and illuminated staircases, centered around a 90-year-old, 50-foot-tall palm tree that stretches up through the middle of the store and pokes its “head” out of a glass, chimney-like structure in the ceiling. —N.D.
The timbered facade of Hay-on-Wye Booksellers dates back to the 1400s.
Photo by Colin Burdett/Shutterstock
Hay-on-Wye Booksellers
Hay-on-Wye, Wales
The small, bookshop-filled Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye is a reader’s dream, especially during the annual summer literary festival, and Hay-on-Wye Booksellers is just one of many charming spots. Hours can be lost browsing new, secondhand, and antiquarian books behind its 15th-century black-and-white timbered front. —T.C.
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly
Montreal, Canada
This magical shop will convert literary snobs who turn up their nose when they hear that you like graphic novels and comics. Drawn & Quarterly started by publishing a magazine showcasing some of the best cartoonists around—Kate Beaton, Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, among others—and then began publishing books. In 2007, D&Q opened a small shop in the Mile End neighborhood of Montreal to sell those books as well as books by other publishers, both French and English. The store is full of personality, and the staff is eager to steer you to their favorites and to hear about your own. —Ann Shields, Afar contributor
Atlantis Books is a favorite among visitors to the island of Santorini.
Photo by Marina Datsenko/Shutterstock
Atlantis Books
Santorini, Greece
Crammed to the ceiling with books, this dreamy store in Santorini feels like the library of an eclectic ship captain, thanks to the woodwork and assortment of knickknacks. The shop, with books in Greek, English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Italian, specializes in classic fiction and nonfiction, but in a nod to Greek history, you’ll also find selections on philosophy, art, and poetry. —K.L.G.
Bookmark
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Opened in 1972, Bookmark has been Charlottetown’s independent bookstore of note for more than four decades. The locally owned spot is a favorite for its book selection, of course, but also for its strong sense of community—everyone who shops here is a friend. If you’re not sure what you want to read next, check the bookseller bios on the website, find the person who shares your interests, and go with their personalized suggestions. —Natalie Beauregard, Afar contributor
This article originally appeared online in 2020; it was most recently updated on July 18, 2024, to include current information.
