What these have in common is a building doing something it was not built for, and a business that decided the space was worth the inconvenience. Here are fifteen worth a detour.
1. El Ateneo Grand Splendid, Buenos Aires, Argentina
A century-old theatre converted into a bookshop with the boxes, the painted ceiling and the ornate proscenium retained, and the stage now a cafe.
Readers sit in the former theatre boxes with books, which is a truly unusual way to browse. El Ateneo is the bookshop where the seating is original theatre furniture.
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2. Livraria Lello, Porto, Portugal
A neo-Gothic shop with a dramatic curving crimson staircase, stained glass ceiling and carved wooden shelving, dating from the early twentieth century.
It is extremely popular and charges an admission fee that is redeemable against a purchase. Livraria Lello is the bookshop whose staircase became more famous than its stock.
3. Boekhandel Dominicanen, Maastricht, Netherlands
A thirteenth-century Dominican church converted into a bookshop, with a multi-storey steel shelving structure inserted into the nave.
The insertion is deliberately reversible and lets browsers reach the vaulting. Dominicanen is the bookshop built as scaffolding inside a church.
4. Shakespeare and Company, Paris, France
A long-standing English-language bookshop on the Left Bank, known for narrow rooms, beds among the shelves and a tradition of hosting travelling writers.
The current shop carries the name of an earlier and separate business. Shakespeare and Company is the bookshop that people have slept in.
5. The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles, USA
A former bank building with vaults, columns and a mezzanine where books are arranged into tunnels and arches as installations.
The upper floor is organised more as sculpture than as retail. The Last Bookstore is the bookshop where the books have been used as building material.
6. Cafebreria El Pendulo, Mexico City, Mexico
A bookshop and cafe filled with living plants and trees growing through multiple storeys, with shelving arranged around them.
The greenery is real and substantial rather than decorative. El Pendulo is the bookshop that is also a greenhouse.
7. Libreria Acqua Alta, Venice, Italy
Books stored in bathtubs, a gondola and waterproof containers, because the shop floods regularly and the stock has to float or be lifted.
A staircase in the courtyard is built from damaged books. Acqua Alta is the bookshop whose storage system is a flood defence.
8. Barter Books, Alnwick, England
A large secondhand bookshop in a Victorian railway station, with a model railway running above the shelves and the original waiting rooms in use.
It is where a wartime poster was rediscovered and subsequently reproduced worldwide. Barter Books is the bookshop that still looks like the station it was.
9. Bart Books and the Hong Kong Upstairs Shops
Rents pushed independent bookshops in Hong Kong onto upper floors, reachable by lift and stairs and signposted by small plates at street level.
Finding one is part of the experience. The upstairs bookshops are the ones that survived by going vertical.
10. Atlantis Books, Santorini, Greece
A small whitewashed shop dug into a cliffside village, founded by travellers, with a roof terrace looking over the caldera.
Its opening hours reflect the island season rather than a schedule. Atlantis Books is the bookshop with the best view on this list.
11. Daunt Books, Marylebone, London, England
An Edwardian shop with a long oak galleried room and a glazed roof, arranged unusually by country rather than by genre.
Travel writing, fiction, history and guidebooks for a place all sit together, which changes how you browse. Daunt is the bookshop shelved by geography instead of category.
12. Bookshops of Hay-on-Wye, Wales
A small border town with an unusual concentration of secondhand and specialist bookshops, several occupying a castle and former cinemas.
The town reorganised itself around the trade decades ago. Hay-on-Wye is the place where the bookshop is the town rather than a shop in it.
14. Selexyz and the Converted Buildings of Europe
Across Europe, bookshops occupy former banks, chapels, cinemas and market halls, keeping the original fittings and inserting shelving around them.
The pattern is common enough to be worth looking for wherever you travel. These are the bookshops worth finding because of what the building used to be.
15. Cook and Book, Brussels, Belgium
A series of themed rooms in which the interior design changes completely between sections, including a ceiling hung with suspended books.
Each room is designed around what it sells rather than following a single scheme. Cook and Book is the bookshop that changes character as you walk through it.
Rooms That Happen to Sell Books
Every shop here made a decision that a difficult building was worth adapting, and the result is a retail space people travel to look at, which is not a description that applies to much retail.
Practical notes: several of these are extremely busy, at least one charges admission, opening hours vary seasonally and some are closed on days you would not expect. Check before travelling, go early or late for the quieter hour, and buy something rather than only photographing the staircase, because the second is what keeps the first open.
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