Plate M-4 · 909 stores · 751–900 of 909 · curated ORBIS register
This plate lists 909 shops in 100 countries. Paris has the most with 27, followed by Tokyo with 15. Among these shops, 5 offer repairs, 63 sell online and 3 work by appointment, going by their own descriptions.
Search by ISBN before you travel: ask the shop to confirm that the exact edition and language you want are on the shelf.
Ask about signed or limited copies: ask how a signed or numbered copy is documented and how it will be packed.
Ask about collection or delivery: an online listing is not proof a title is in the shop, so ask before making the trip.
Check access before you go. The American Book Center says every floor of its Amsterdam shop on the Spui is reached by lift, while only the ground floor of its shop in The Hague is accessible.
Use the city plates when they appear below, or open any store for its official door and related ORBIS city and craft links.
Mercado Mutualista / Los Cocos, Santa Cruz
Librería Memo is a bookshop and stationer in Santa Cruz de la Sierra selling architecture materials, books and Color Mix acrylic paints. One branch is at calle Los Cocos 2475, near the 3er Anillo interno in Zona Mercado Mutualista; a second is at Mercado Mutualista, Asociación 15 de Mayo, Pasillo Motoyoé, casetas 16 and 33.
Best for Books
Centro
Independent Almería bookshop since 1976 — art, poetry, and wide-ranging titles across two floors.
Best for Art and poetry books
Librería Picasso is a two-story independent bookshop located in Almería, Spain (Calle Reyes Católicos 18, 04001 Almería), established in 1977. The shop offers a wide range of titles for adults and children, with dedicated sections for art and poetry. As a long-standing community bookstore, it has served Almería's reading public for nearly 50 years with curated selections spanning fiction, poetry, art, and general reading.
Rosario
Librería Pública is a private Rosario collection of more than 666 art, illustration and design books, open free by appointment.
Best for Books
Barrio La Moncada, Tegucigalpa
Recorrido histórico por la Librería San Antonio de Tegucigalpa, la segunda librería más antigua de la capital.
Best for Books
La Paz
Librería Yachaywasi is an online bookstore in La Paz with an extensive catalog spanning literature, philosophy, science, art and children's books. It also maintains physical branches and offers special orders for out-of-stock titles via WhatsApp.
Best for Wide-ranging book catalog
Newport Beach / United States
A Newport Beach fixture for over 40 years, Lido Village Books is a community bookstore on Via Lido. It hosts storytimes and events and sells books in the shop and through its online store.
Best for Bookstore, books, community events
West Nicolson Street, Southside
Lighthouse is a queer-owned, woman-led independent bookshop on West Nicolson Street, carrying around 10,000 titles with a focus on radical politics, intersectional feminism and LGBTQ+ writing. It runs the Book Fringe each August and the Radical Book Fair in November.
Best for Radical and LGBTQ+ books
Magazine Street / Online
The Magazine Street shop carries the full Lionheart range, including cards, stationery and wedding invitations. Letterpress work is printed in-house at the company’s River Road studio rather than outsourced as generic paper goods.
Best for New Orleans stationery label creating locally designed cards, prints
Derry, Northern Ireland
Little Acorns Bookstore stocks new, rare, and secondhand books with a focus on Irish subjects, authors, and publishers, and calls itself the largest independent bookstore in the north west of Ireland. It also houses Ireland's only typewriter museum.
Best for Irish-interest and secondhand books
Ipanema
Livraria da Travessa is a Rio bookstore chain with curated selections and carefully designed interiors.
Best for Livraria da travessa
Larchmere
Loganberry Books is an independent bookstore on Larchmere Boulevard, with new and used books alongside rare editions. Harriett Logan founded it in 1994, and the collection has particular strengths in illustrated books and women's history. Readers and collectors can also browse literature and books on the arts, with discussion groups and gallery shows forming part of the shop's programme.
Best for New, used and rare books on Larchmere Boulevard
Loganberry Books gives readers room to move between ordinary reading copies and more collectible editions. New and used books share the shop with rare material, and the selection has particular strengths in illustrated books, women's history and literature. Books on the fine and performing arts broaden the reasons to browse beyond a search for a particular novel.
Harriett Logan established the business in November 1994. It originally shared premises with an Oriental rug dealer, expanded into an adjacent space, and moved into its own building in 2003. The name comes from Logan's collegiate nickname, a detail that reflects the personal history behind the independent shop.
Its Larchmere Boulevard setting places it among other small shops and galleries. Inside, visitors can browse across subject areas or ask about an edition they are trying to find. Discussion groups and exhibitions in the annex gallery add other uses for the space. Check the current programme before making a visit around an event, rather than assuming that every activity happens daily.
Azores, Ponta Delgada
Loja dos Açores has sold handicrafts made by craftspeople across the nine Azores islands since 1994, from wood-covered notebooks themed around motifs such as the pineapple, hydrangea and priolo bird to carved wooden figures. The makers work in traditional Azorean materials and forms but also introduce new materials and themes.
Best for Azorean handicrafts and gift notebooks
Alcântara
Converted industrial complex — shops, restaurants, street art, bookshop, and Sunday market under the 25 de Abril bridge.
Best for Converted creative industrial complex.
Greenville, SC
M. Judson Booksellers occupies the historic courthouse building in downtown Greenville, South Carolina. Its shelves combine current books and classics with a selection of gifts for readers. Booksellers provide recommendations, and the café gives visitors somewhere to pause with coffee.
Best for Bookseller recommendations and café browsing in Greenville
M. Judson Booksellers occupies the historic courthouse building in downtown Greenville, South Carolina, stocking bestsellers, poetry, Southern literature, cookbooks and gifts sourced from around the Upstate. Its in-house café, The Kitchen, serves coffee, wine and food to browsing customers — a name the store ties to its own namesake, patron Mary Camilla Judson. The calendar runs well past a typical reading series: recurring book clubs, author events branded Books Over Drinks and Pop-Up Author sessions, trivia nights, a standing Reading Challenge, and an annual Reading Retreat. The store partners with the literacy nonprofit Writeshare and runs programs aimed at schools and educators, alongside bulk ordering for businesses. A second location operates in Fountain Inn, extending the store beyond its original courthouse address at 130 South Main Street. Hours stretch late on weekends — open until nine on Fridays and Saturdays — keeping the café and events calendar running well past a typical bookstore's close. No founding year is published on the site; what's documented instead is the building's second life as a bookstore and the namesake behind its café.
Sanibel Island (adjacent to Captiva)
An independent bookshop on neighboring Sanibel Island stocking new titles, local and nature writing, and paper goods and stationery. It serves the paired Sanibel and Captiva islands as their community bookstore.
Best for New books and stationery
Broome
Magabala Books is an Indigenous-owned Australian publishing house, based in Broome and publishing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and illustrators since 1987. Its list spans picture books, fiction, poetry and cultural histories.
Best for Indigenous Australian books
Clerkenwell (270 St John Street, EC1V 4PE) / Online
Specialist independent magazine shop carrying a large, frequently changing selection of international independent publications.
Best for Rare and niche print magazines — 700+ titles covering architecture, cannabis, disability
Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo
Mamey Librería is an independent Caribbean bookshop. It is dedicated to promoting and circulating Caribbean and Latin American literature, together with independent editions and illustrated books, and to new forms of literary expression.
Best for Books
Saint-Ouen
The largest antique market in the world, with over 2,500 stalls and shops spread across 14 individual markets. From 18th-century furniture to vintage Chanel, from Art Deco lamps to rare books — if it.
Best for From 18th-century furniture to vintage Chanel
960 Main Avenue, Durango, CO
A locally owned independent bookstore on Main Avenue since 1984, offering a broad selection of new titles and regular community events. The shop operates from its downtown Durango storefront alongside an active online store.
Best for Independent new books and local events
Marlow / United Kingdom
Marlow Bookshop is an independent shop at 22-24 Spittal Street in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, stocking new releases, fiction, non-fiction and children's books. Customers can reserve books online for in-store collection or order titles, and the shop runs reading groups and author events.
Best for New releases, fiction, and children's books, plus reading groups and author events
Kikuyu
Mathaga stocks books on African history, Kenyan heritage, biographies and children's literature, alongside carved, painted, stitched and shaped handcrafted items, at its shop opposite Kikuyu Railway Station in Kikuyu Town. The shop is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10am to 5pm and offers local and global shipping.
Best for African history books and handcrafted heritage items
Stirling, Adelaide Hills
Matilda Bookshop is an independent bookshop in Stirling in the Adelaide Hills, owned and staffed by booklovers who offer personalised book recommendations and a subscription service. The shop runs six book clubs and author events, and was named Australian Book Industry Awards Bookshop of the Year in 2023.
Best for Personalised book recommendations and book clubs
Breestraat 70, city centre
Mayflower is an international bookshop in Leiden, stocking English-language and bilingual titles from a Breestraat address it moved into in November 2021. It runs regular author talks and stays open seven days a week.
Best for English-language and bilingual books
Haddington Place, Leith Walk
Established in 1957, McNaughtan's is a Scottish second-hand and antiquarian bookshop, at Haddington Place near the top of Leith Walk. Its gallery space hosts Typewronger Books, which deals in new titles and vintage typewriters.
Best for Antiquarian and second-hand books
Gangchen Kyishong, Dharamshala
Re-established in Dharamshala in 1961 by the 14th Dalai Lama, this institute runs a pharmacy department that compounds Sorig herbal medicines and precious pills from traditional Tibetan formulations. Its counters and online shop also carry astrological calendars, amulets and Tibetan medical texts produced in-house.
Best for Sorig Tibetan herbal medicines, precious pills, astrological products
Montpellier / France
In Montpellier, Metropolitan Concept Store selects furniture, lighting, fashion accessories, jewellery, stationery and gifts from French brands and independent creators.
Best for French design and creator goods
Rio Vermelho, Salvador
Mídialouca is a bookstore at Rua da Fonte do Boi 81 in Salvador’s Rio Vermelho neighbourhood. Its official site presents both the physical shop and an online catalogue of books.
Best for Books
Abasto, Rosario
Escenario is a book of drawings by Romina Carrara about persistence, cycles and the misfortunes of a life. It is available in two editions.
Best for Books
Minusculario Ediciones in Rosario publishes illustrated books and graphic novels by independent artists, among them Romina Carrara, Lisandro Demarchi and Sergio Aquindo. Its website gives no street address for a shop. Buy through the online catalogue, which the publisher says currently ships within Argentina only.
Nantucket / United States
Mitchell's Book Corner is a long-running independent bookstore on Nantucket. Its titles can be browsed at the shop or ordered through its online store.
Best for A long-running independent bookstore on Nantucket, browsed in-store or ordered online
Giurgiu County, Comana
Moara de hârtie, at 278-280 Funieru Street in Comana's Satul meșteșugurilor (Craftsmen's Village), sells handmade notebooks and paper, softwood-carved wooden toys and figurines, and weaving equipment such as miniature looms and gherghef embroidery frames. Recent items include a wooden airplane kit, a miniature weaving loom and wooden animal figurines priced between 25 and 65 lei.
Best for Handmade paper and wooden toys
Kamloops, BC, Canada
Mosaic Books is an independent bookstore in downtown Kamloops that curates its shelves around Canadian literature and hosts regular author signings and readings for local and national writers. The store has become a gathering point for the city's literary community, pairing current releases with staff-chosen backlist and bargain titles.
Best for Local literary finds and author events
Mitcham, Adelaide
Mostly Books is Adelaide's oldest bookstore, established in 1977 and located at 119 Belair Road, Torrens Park, inside Mitcham Square. The shop stocks a wide range of books and audiobooks, sells gift cards and produces a podcast called Books on the Go.
Best for Wide range of books and audiobooks
Tirana
Music Bo(o)ks, at Rruga Ilo Mitkë Qafzezi 2 in Tirana, stocks over 50,000 titles of Albanian and Balkan books, e-publications, newspapers, magazines, maps and CDs/DVDs. It is run by Botimpex, founded in 1991 to supply Albanian publications worldwide.
Best for Albanian and balkan books
Nantucket / United States
Nantucket Bookworks is an independent bookstore on Nantucket carrying a curated selection of books. Its titles are available in the shop and through its online store.
Best for A curated book selection on Nantucket, browsed in-store or online
Napa
An independent bookseller with shops on Second Street and inside the Oxbow Public Market, Napa Bookmine stocks new and used titles, hosts author events and runs a book subscription. Its IndieCommerce site lets customers order books, audiobooks and merchandise online.
Best for Bookstore, new & used books, gifts
96 Bold Street, Liverpool
Operating as a women's worker co-operative since 1974, News From Nowhere is a radical and community bookshop on Bold Street stocking political, feminist and small-press titles alongside mainstream fiction. It has run as a collectively-owned business for over five decades, making it one of the longest-running radical bookshops in Britain.
Best for Radical, political and small-press books
Sebastopol
North Bay Letterpress Arts in Sebastopol is a center for teaching and practicing letterpress printing, housing 9 printing presses, over 200 typefaces and more than 1,000 cuts and ornaments. The organization has produced 243 books and offered 221 workshops to date, with 15 active studio printers among its members.
Best for Letterpress printing studio and workshops
Kasbah des Oudaias, Rabat
Galerie Nouiga is an art gallery in the Oudayas district described on Instagram as also functioning as a literary bookshop and cafe. It maintains a Threads presence under the same handle.
Best for Art and literary books
Sturgeon Bay, Door County, Wisconsin
A women-owned, curated independent bookstore in downtown Sturgeon Bay selling both in-store and online with shipping or pickup. The shop leans on hand-picked titles rather than a warehouse-scale catalog.
Best for Curated new-book browsing
Cedofeita
A curated second-hand fashion and design store with vintage ceramics, art books and photography. The shop presents itself more like a gallery than a conventional resale store.
Best for Vintage ceramics, art books, and photography alongside second-hand fashion
120 O'Connell Street, Limerick
O'Mahony's Booksellers is a family bookselling business founded by J. P. O'Mahony on Limerick's O'Connell Street in 1902. Its Limerick shop carries children's books alongside general reading and specialist non-fiction, with an online store extending the business beyond the city. The shop has also hosted author visits and book launches, connecting its retail shelves with local literary events.
Best for Independent book browsing and specialist non-fiction in Limerick
O'Mahony's Booksellers began in Limerick in 1902, when J. P. O'Mahony opened a shop after working in the haberdashery department of Cannock's. The family history estimates that the first shop had three staff and occupied about 550 square feet. Frank O'Mahony later joined the company around 1918, carrying the business into a second generation. The official account describes trading through the First World War and the changes that followed, giving the present bookseller more than a century of documented family continuity. That history supports a catalogue with unusual depth. General books sit beside Irish fiction, Irish history and books as Gaeilge. School and academic sections add law and medicine alongside nursing and education. Agriculture and veterinary subjects form another specialist group. Children's books are divided by reading stage and age. Maps and stationery, together with professional titles widen the practical range. Author visits and signing photographs form part of the shop's own archive. O'Mahony's identity is therefore grounded in both place and duration: a Limerick business founded by a named bookseller, expanded through family succession and sustained by a catalogue that serves general readers and students alongside specialist professions.
São Bento do Sapucaí / Brazil
Hand-bound albums, boxes and fine stationery from a bookbinder-run school-atelier in Brazil's Serra da Mantiqueira.
Best for Hand-bound albums, boxes and fine stationery
O Velho Livreiro is a bookbinding school and atelier founded by bookbinder-instructor Pablo Peinado and bookbinder-woodworker Alessandra Evangelho, who describe their operation on their own site as "a school and atelier of bookbinding and fine stationery offering courses and workshops in-person and online, for those wanting to enter the world of paper and the arts of the book." The business began in São Paulo's Vila Madalena neighborhood before relocating in 2020 to the Serra da Mantiqueira mountains, where it now runs as a school-atelier combining teaching with artistic-residency stays.
The workshop's output is not limited to instruction: its site lists fine stationery and custom paper goods — albums, boxes, notebooks and editorial projects — plus handcrafted bookbinding tools and equipment (presses, perforators, folders) built for the trade rather than bought in. O Velho Livreiro also coordinates a network of certified bookbinders across Brazil who take on personalized commissions and editorial production support, positioning the atelier as a hub for the craft nationally rather than a single-city storefront.
The founders' choice to relocate from a São Paulo neighborhood studio to a dedicated mountain school-atelier, and to build their own tools rather than resell others', points to a business organized around the craft itself rather than around retail volume. Two named practitioners, a documented decade-plus of continuous operation across two locations, and a stated mission centered on bookbinding and paper arts support treating this as a genuine dedicated bindery and teaching workshop, not a general crafts shop.
Rhinebeck, NY
Open in Montgomery Row since 1975, Oblong Books is an independent shop stocked with new titles and staff picks. Author events keep its calendar full.
Best for Independent new-book browsing and author events
Uptown
Octavia Books is an independent Uptown bookstore with a curated fiction and nonfiction selection. Author events and staff recommendations make it a community bookseller rather than a general media chain.
Best for Author events and a curated fiction/nonfiction selection at a neighbourhood bookstore
Black Jack Street, Cirencester
This independent bookshop on Black Jack Street is known for its children's section, with hand-picked titles and recommendations from the counter. It stocks a broad general range of fiction and non-fiction and hosts author signings and events.
Best for Independent bookselling and children's books
Southampton / Online
October Books is Southampton's only independent bookshop, a staff- and member-led radical bookstore in Portswood selling new releases, local authors, and fair-trade foods alongside a full online shop. The shop also runs a community space and school partnership program.
Best for Southampton's only independent, member-led radical bookshop — new releases, local authors
Downtown Jackson, Mississippi
OffBeat sells vinyl records and comic books from a storefront on North State Street in downtown Jackson, run by owner Phillip Rollins. The shop is a fixture referenced in local guides to Jackson's independent record-store and comics history.
Best for Vinyl records and comic books
Downtown / Main Street
Ohio Book Store began in 1940 and moved to its present Cincinnati address at 726 Main Street in 1961. Books and magazines occupy five floors including the basement, with an enquiry service for specific titles. Its binding department also handles repairs and restoration, on a separate schedule from the shop.
Best for Used books and bookbinding repairs
Ohio Book Store has occupied its present Main Street building in Cincinnati since 1961, although the business itself began in 1940. James Hardwick founded it at a different Main Street address, and James Fallon later bought the business after first joining as an employee. The current premises provide five floors including the basement, giving a browsing visit a different scale from a small specialist bookshop. Books and magazines cover many subjects, and the store also offers an inventory search or enquiry for a particular title. Its bindery adds a practical service for readers who already own the book they need: repair and restoration, as well as custom binding. Those services have their own working hours, which differ from the shop's weekend schedule. A buyer looking for a particular edition can enquire before arriving, while someone bringing a damaged volume should contact the repair department about the work required. The combination makes this both a place to find books and somewhere to seek help preserving them.
Monterey / United States
A friendly used bookstore on Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey, stocking fiction, poetry, children's books and non-fiction. It hosts reading groups, poetry workshops and author signings, and lists titles through an online catalogue.
Best for Bookstore, used-books, poetry
Fort Lauderdale / United States
Run by William Chrisant & Sons since 1978, Old Florida Book Shop deals in rare books, antique maps and vintage magazines from its Griffin Road location in Fort Lauderdale. A member of the ABAA and ILAB, it buys and sells books and lets you browse hundreds of subject categories online.
Best for Bookshop, rare-books, antique-maps
Lucas Gasselstraat 2a, Eindhoven
Part exhibition space, part publisher and part risograph workshop, Onomatopee produces books and readers on contemporary design and culture that reach shops as far as MoMA. Its Eindhoven venue sells those publications and small-run RISO prints, open by appointment and around exhibitions.
Best for Design books and risograph prints
Adelaide Arcade, CBD
Orchard Bookshop is a boutique bookstore in Adelaide Arcade selling hand-picked new, vintage and collectible books, both in store and online with a weekly Sunday Drop of new stock. The shop also buys books from customers and offers free postage within Australia on orders over $50.
Best for Hand-picked new and collectible books
Orinda / United States
Orinda Books is an independent bookstore at Village Square in Orinda stocking fiction, nonfiction and children's titles, with book subscriptions, gift cards and a busy calendar of author talks and book clubs. Customers can browse and order through its online storefront or shop in person six days a week.
Best for Bookstore, independent books, children's books, gift cards
Barrio Capri, Cali
Oromo Libreria Editorial opened in southern Cali, Colombia in 2020, pairing used books and craft beer with coffee. The name honors the Oromo people of Ethiopia and their coffee-based conflict-resolution ritual.
Best for Used books, craft beer and coffee in an Oromo-inspired cultural space
Oromo Libreria Editorial started selling online in 2019 before opening a physical space in southern Cali, Colombia on January 3, 2020, launched with support from family and friends rather than outside investment. The name is a deliberate reference: the Oromo people of central Ethiopia are described on the shop's own site as among the first to use coffee beans, with a coffee ritual historically used to reach resolutions in conflicts or trade agreements - a lineage the Cali shop invokes directly in its name rather than as a passing detail. Its original inventory reflected that mixed identity from the start: used books, craft beer, and coffee sourced through what the shop calls diverse social processes, rather than a single supply chain. Four years after opening its doors, Oromo still frames itself less as a conventional cafe or bookstore than as a cultural space, shipping nationally within Colombia and taking all standard payment methods for online orders. The combination - secondhand books, beer, and coffee tied to a specific origin story - sets it apart from Cali's more conventional cafe-bookshop pairings.
Bay View Street
Independent since 1970, Owl & Turtle anchors downtown Camden with a deep selection of Maine and marine titles plus a large children's section. Its cafe pours locally roasted beans from Coffee on the Porch alongside treats from area bakers.
Best for Camden bookshop since 1970 pouring locally roasted Coffee on the Porch beans
Owl & Turtle has been part of downtown Camden's identity since 1970, describing itself as an integral part of the coastal town's commercial core across more than five decades in business. Its shelves run wide - fiction and nonfiction, a large children's section, cookbooks, poetry and memoir - with a particular depth in marine titles and Maine-centric selections that mark it as a bookshop shaped by its coastal setting rather than a generic independent store. The cafe side pours locally roasted beans from Coffee on the Porch, a named local roaster rather than a generic house blend, and pairs coffee with sweet and savory treats sourced from area bakers instead of made in-house. That combination - a marine-and-Maine book specialty, a named local coffee roaster, and locally sourced bakery treats - gives the shop a set of concrete regional ties rather than a generic bookstore-cafe formula, and it's a combination that has held steady since the store's founding year in 1970, long enough to have become a fixture of Camden's downtown rather than a newer addition to it.
Rosario
Oxímoron is an independent bookshop and cultural space in the Argentine city of Rosario. It shows and sells books that come from self-published authors and from small independent publishers.
Best for Books
Montpellier / France
Oxygen in Montpellier selects design-led gifts, jewellery, stationery, travel goods and home objects.
Best for Design-led gifts and accessories
Nottingham / Online
Page 45 is an independent Nottingham shop devoted to comics and graphic novels, from manga and superheroes to small-press and literary work. It sells and takes pre-orders through its online store and welcomes customers in person at the shop.
Best for Comics, graphic novels, manga, independent bookshop
CBD, Adelaide
Page & Turner is an Adelaide bookshop selling popular current titles and pre-loved books, audiobooks, music CDs and other media, including collectible Folio Society and Penguin editions. The shop operates both a physical Adelaide store and an online shop with free shipping on orders over $50.
Best for New and secondhand books and media
Centro
A century-old specialist for stationery, art materials, writing instruments and craft supplies.Established 1914.
Best for Stationery, art materials, writing instruments, and craft supplies since 1914
Port of Spain / Trinidad and Tobago
For over 37 years Paper Based Bookshop at The Writers Centre in St. Clair has been Trinidad and Tobago's only bookstore dedicated exclusively to Caribbean literature. Its online catalogue spans fiction, poetry, cookbooks and children's titles, alongside in-store hours Monday through Saturday.
Best for Over 37 years Paper Based Bookshop at The Writers Centre in St
Park Road Shopping Center
Charlotte's independent general bookstore in the Park Road Shopping Center, with staff picks spanning fiction, children's titles, and regional authors. It hosts frequent author signings and community reading events.
Best for Staff picks spanning fiction, children's titles, and regional authors
Park Road Books has been Charlotte's independent general bookstore since 1977, trading from the Park Road Shopping Center at 4139 Park Road. Owner Sally Brewster runs a full-service shop that deals in new books only and does not buy or sell used copies. Titles come in directly from publishers, and the shop describes itself as Charlotte's only independent full-service bookstore. Fiction and nonfiction fill the shelves, with children's titles beside audiobooks and merchandise. Author signings are a fixture, and the guest list over the years has included David Sedaris and John Grisham. Local book clubs meet in the store, and the calendar carries poetry readings and story times through the seasons. Comfortable chairs and sofas invite customers to sample a book before buying. Park Road Books is a frequent recipient of Creative Loafing's Readers' Pick award. The Charlotte Ledger reported in 2020 that the shop shifted to mail delivery during the pandemic, relying on the postal service's media rate for online orders, and that customers turned to what Brewster called comfort reading. Staff recommendations remain the shop's daily trade. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation has featured Brewster's reading list, noting that she reads Charlotte-based authors before their books reach the shelves.
Rue Antoine Dansaert (Dansaert quarter)
The bookshop of an international house of literature, Passa Porta stocks novels, poetry, essays and children's books across several languages in the Dansaert quarter. It ties its selection to a wider programme of author events and writer residencies.
Best for Multilingual literature
Shahbagh, Dhaka
A four-decade-old bookseller and publisher with stores at Katabon and Shahbag, including the Pathak Shamabesh Centre. It stocks fiction, poetry, academic and children's titles and publishes under its own imprint.
Best for Books across Bengali and English titles
Peach Street, Cape Charles
Peach Street Books in Cape Charles, Virginia sells used titles at half retail or less alongside coffee from Eastern Shore Coastal Roasters. New releases picked by local book clubs get storewide discounts too.
Best for Peach Street Books in Cape Charles
Peach Street Books runs out of 401 Mason Avenue in Cape Charles, Virginia, stocking thousands of new and gently used titles across categories running from beach reads and classics to YA, sci-fi, modern fiction, nature guides and a notably large collection of historical nonfiction for a shop this size. Used books are priced at half the current retail price or less, a specific, stated discount rather than a vague "discounted" label, and new titles selected by local book clubs get a discount extended to all customers, not just club members. The cafe side pours coffee from Eastern Shore Coastal Roasters, a named regional roaster rather than a generic house blend. One small operational detail stands out: the shop lists no phone number, directing customers to reach it through Facebook messaging instead, a distinctly small-town, low-overhead way of running a bookstore. Between the named local roaster, the specific half-price used-book policy, and the book-club discount program open to all customers, Peach Street reads as a shop with concrete, verifiable habits rather than boilerplate independent-bookstore description.
Sunset Beach / United States
Pelican Bookstore has served the coastal community of Sunset Beach, North Carolina, for 27 years from its shop at 1780 Chandlers Lane, stocking new and used books, puzzles, and coastal-themed gifts. The store regularly hosts author signings and events, including several scheduled for summer 2026.
Best for New and used books, puzzles, coastal-themed gifts
Cais do Sodré
Pensão Amor is a Former brothel turned bar, offering burlesque décor, cocktail bar, bookshop, and performance space.
Best for Converted brothel bar and performance space.
Rumuolumeni
PenWorld Bookshop operates from Woko Street in Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt, as part of a publishing services company. Beyond retail it runs writers' training workshops and is linked to author Dimabo Oruama's published fiction.
Best for Books and writers workshops
Washington Square West
A locally rooted books stationery destination in the city. An LGBTQ+ bookshop. Established 1973.
Best for The country's oldest LGBTQ+ bookshop, established 1973
Burlington (Bank Street)
Phoenix Books is a locally owned independent bookseller whose Burlington shop hosts author events and stocks a broad general trade list. It runs on community membership and a sister store in Essex.
Best for General-interest books and events
Thamel / Online
Pilgrims lists more than 50,000 titles, with deep shelves in Himalayan studies, Buddhism and travel alongside general reading. Its online catalogue also exposes specialist and hard-to-find books before a visit.
Best for Travel guides for Nepal, Buddhist philosophy books, local Nepali literature, English classics
Old Town, Bratislava
Place Store sells handcrafted goods from small Czech and Slovak makers at Hurbanovo námestie in Bratislava. The shop stocks cosmetics, fashion, jewelry, accessories, stationery, home decor and children's items sourced from regional artisans.
Best for Handmade cosmetics, jewelry and home decor from regional makers
N 3rd Street, downtown Danville, Kentucky
An independent children's bookshop built for young readers and the grownups who bring them, stocking picture books and middle-grade titles alongside toys and games. It rounds out the shop with art classes and mosaic-making sessions on site.
Best for Children's books and creative classes
Des Moines, Iowa
Plain Talk Books & Coffee is an East Village bookstore and cafe serving deli and vegan sandwiches on house-baked bread alongside small-batch local coffee. The shop hosts live music and author events on East Grand Avenue.
Best for New and used books with deli and coffee bar
Plain Talk Books & Coffee has anchored Des Moines' East Village since 2009, when it opened in a building whose printing-press history it wears on its sleeve. The shop takes its name from Plain Talk, a Des Moines newspaper once produced by Plain Talk Publishing Company on the same block; its logo is redrawn from a cartoon found in the paper's own archives, paired with a line from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream about the power of writers to give shape to the intangible. The building's earlier tenant, Hammer Pharmacy, left its own mark: Plain Talk's lunch counter is modeled on the pharmacy's soda fountain and named "Al and Lew's," after Alvin G. Hammer and Lewis G. Hast, proprietors of neighboring shops from that era. A ghost sign advertising "Alvin G. Hammer, Druggist" is still visible on the building's west facade. Inside, new and used books share space with an espresso bar, deli sandwiches built on house-baked bread, and locally roasted coffee. The East Grand Avenue shop doubles as a neighborhood gathering spot, hosting live music and author events that keep the East Village's small-press and pharmacy-row history in circulation rather than behind glass.
Oranjestad
Discover a wide selection of books, office supplies, and copy center services at Plaza Bookshop Aruba, your trusted online store for all reading and office needs.
Best for Books
Old San Juan
PoetsPassage.com - A living art museum. Artists create as you lounge, shop, or walk thru the gallery.
Best for Books
Fernie, BC
Fernie's independent bookshop since 1993, positioned as a community hub for literacy with a focus on Canadian fiction and local authors. The store runs its own online catalogue alongside the downtown shop.
Best for Independent bookshop and Canadian fiction
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Porter Square Books sells books, audiobooks, and merchandise from locations in Cambridge and Boston, each paired with a cafe, Page and Leaf Cafe and Travel Mug Cafe. The shop hosts author events and book clubs, including Sci-Fi/Fantasy, YA, and Reading Romance groups, and partners with Libro.fm for audiobooks.
Best for Author events and book clubs
Pearl District
Powell's City of Books occupies an entire city block in the Pearl District, making it the world's largest independent bookstore. Its shelves hold more than one million books, spread across that single block-sized store.
Best for Over 1 million books
Short North, Columbus, Ohio
An independent bookshop in the Short North stocking a hand-picked selection of new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A small, considered inventory and staff recommendations shape the shelves.
Best for Hand-picked new books
Raleigh / United States
Quail Ridge Books is an independent bookstore in Raleigh's North Hills neighborhood that hosts frequent author events alongside a full retail floor of new releases, staff picks and signed editions. Customers can shop in person or order online with free media mail shipping on orders over $75.
Best for New releases, staff picks, signed books and author events
Đa Kao
Reading Cabin is an independent book, stationery and plant shop tucked into a residential lane.
Best for Books, stationery, and plants in a tucked-away residential-lane shop
Carlton
This independent Carlton bookstore carries a broad range and hosts author events.
Best for Carlton bookstore known for its huge range, author events, and cult following
Downtown, 275 E Campbell Ave
A general used bookseller that buys, sells and trades across nearly every subject, with deep sections in science fiction, mystery, literature, art and children's titles. The Campbell shop is the western branch of the San Jose store that has dealt secondhand books on The Alameda for decades.
Best for Secondhand and out-of-print books
Downtown (Grove Street)
Rediscovered Books is an independent Boise bookshop with staff recommendations and a programme of reading groups and author events. Its current store is in the Linen District at the corner of 16th and Grove. The business also operates Once and Future Books on State Street, a separate shop for used books.
Best for Staff-selected books and literary events in Boise
Arroios
Textile researcher Rosa Pomar opened this yarn shop to work directly with Portuguese shepherds, spinning wool from native and near-extinct breeds such as the Bordaleira and Churra into yarns sold nowhere else. The shop also stocks pattern books and notions for the traditional Portuguese knitting and embroidery techniques Pomar has spent years documenting.
Best for Heritage Portuguese wool yarn
France / Online
The recognizable orange stationery pad — French dot-grids and ruled sheets from the Clairefontaine family since 1934.
Best for The iconic orange dot-grid notepads from the Clairefontaine family
Rhodia originated in 1932 as Papeteries Verilhac Frères in Lyon, France, founded by brothers Henri and Robert Verilhac. The brand name and logo emerged in 1934 when operations moved to Sechilienne near Grenoble, derived from the Rhône River flowing past Lyon. The instantly recognizable bright orange covers have defined Rhodia pads for nine decades. In 1997, Clairefontaine acquired Rhodia, relocating production to Mulhouse in Alsace where it shares paper mills with its parent company; notably, members of the original Verilhac family continue working for the company. Rhodia's staple-bound pads feature 80-gram acid-free, pH-neutral paper micro-perforated on top for clean tearing. The paper quality matches Clairefontaine's own premium stock. Today Rhodia's portfolio extends beyond the classic orange and black pads to include the Dot Everything Collection featuring dot pads and webnotebooks, catering to creatives, architects, and writers who prize smooth, fountain-pen-friendly paper and portable functionality.
Marburg / Germany
Buchhandlung Roter Stern is an independent Marburg bookshop at Am Gruen 28-30, open Monday to Saturday and long serving as the local partner bookshop of Hessischer Rundfunk's hr2 culture programme. It offers reading recommendations in-store and an online shop for ordering books.
Best for Book recommendations and online ordering from independent Marburg booksellers
Printers Row (South Loop)
Ulrich and Ellen Sandmeyer opened this general bookshop in 1982 inside a 19th-century printing building on Printers Row, keeping the original hardwood floors and tall windows. The family-run store is known for its travel and children's sections and hand-selected literary fiction.
Best for General and travel books
Centro Histórico, Santa Marta
Santa Marca sells Colombian-designed apparel, accessories, drinkware, stationery and souvenirs such as magnets, keychains and pins, using materials including pewter and ceramic for its mugs. It is located in the historic center of Santa Marta and states its products are 100% Colombian.
Best for Colombian designed souvenirs and gifts
Davos
Shop at the historic Schatzalp hotel — the 'Magic Mountain' that inspired Thomas Mann. Alpine luxury products, books, and hotel-branded items. Accessible by funicular.
Best for Alpine luxury products, books, and hotel-branded items
Magazine Street
Scriptura specialises in fine paper, pens, invitations, cards and calligraphy materials on Magazine Street. Custom stationery services distinguish it from a general gift shop and make planning ahead worthwhile.
Best for Fine papers, pens, invitations, and calligraphy supplies in New Orleans
Centro / 25 de Mayo y México, Asunción
Servilibro calls itself home to the best books from Paraguay, stocking more than 1,000 titles by Paraguayan authors from its store at 25 de Mayo and México in Asunción. Its categories span Paraguayan literature, history, children's books, poetry, legal texts, cookbooks and comics.
Best for Paraguayan authors and literature
Bar Harbor (56 Main St)
Founded in 1886, Sherman's is a Maine bookseller, and this Main Street branch pairs its shelves with stationery and Maine-made gifts. The Bar Harbor store keeps the independent bookshop tradition alive on Mount Desert Island.
Best for Books, Maine gifts and stationery
Near University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
Founded in 1974 near the University of Oregon, Smith Family keeps two locations and roughly half a million used and new books across hundreds of subjects. The Alder Street shop serves the campus while the downtown Willamette Street branch draws general readers.
Best for Used and new books across subjects
Murcia / Spain / Online
Solar del Bruto is a Murcia-based antiquarian bookseller trading in second-hand, rare and out-of-print books, from seventeenth-century volumes to signed first editions. Its online shop sorts thousands of titles by period and subject, with free Spanish shipping over fifty euros.
Best for Books, second-hand books, antiquarian, rare books
La Paz
Solo Libros in La Paz sells new books and printed matter, both Bolivian and imported. Its about page describes the shop as a place for the distribution, promotion and sale of legal books, and as a space for the exchange of ideas across different currents of thought.
Best for New books and printed matter in La Paz
Princess Anne / United States
Housed in a remodeled 1950s Texaco station in Princess Anne, Somerset Choice Station sells glassware, antiquarian books, vintage clothing, and salvaged architectural pieces on consignment. The nonprofit shop is open Monday through Saturday and channels proceeds back into its charitable mission.
Best for Antiques, Consignment, Vintage
Main Street, Cold Spring, NY
An independent bookshop on Main Street with a curated stock of new fiction, nonfiction and children's titles. It runs author events and reading programming and is a member of regional independent-bookseller associations.
Best for New fiction, nonfiction, and children's titles with author events on Main Street
Ortigas Center
Founded by Ric Gindap and Bonnapart Galeng as an art gallery, independent-magazine shop and cultural space — opened November 2023 with more than 120 magazine titles on its shelves.
Best for Independent magazines and prints
Des Moines, Iowa
Storyhouse Bookpub is an independent bookstore on East Grand Avenue in Des Moines' East Village. It curates new titles and hosts community gatherings from its storefront.
Best for Curated new books in the East Village
Main Street, Chincoteague Island
This Main Street bookshop stocks new fiction and nonfiction alongside regional titles about the barrier islands, sharing its floor with racks of music and work by local artists. The owners host frequent author signings, clustering several during the July Pony Swim week when the island fills with visitors.
Best for Regional books, local author signings, music and art
Providence / United States
Symposium Books is an independent bookstore on Westminster Street in downtown Providence, stocking new, used, and bargain titles alongside merchandise like tote bags and gift cards. The shop hosts regular author events and book clubs and sells online with free shipping over $45.
Best for Books, Independent Bookstore, Gifts
San Cristóbal de las Casas / Mexico
Handmade paper and hand-bound Maya-language books from Mexico's only Tzotzil Maya bookbinding collective, founded 1975.
Best for Handmade paper and hand-bound Maya-language books from Mexico's only Tzotzil
Taller Leñateros describes itself as "a contemporary editorial collective operated by Maya artists in Chiapas, Mexico." It was founded in 1975 by the poet Ámbar Past with the explicit goal of reviving Maya bookmaking, and it remains, by its own account, the first and only Tzotzil Maya bookbinding workshop in Mexico — a collective of largely women artisans, based in a colonial house in San Cristóbal de las Casas, who make paper by hand from recycled fiber and maguey (the same plant used for tequila and mezcal) and then print and bind it into finished books.
The workshop's best-known achievement is Incantations: Songs, Spells, and Images by Mayan Women, which the studio and independent accounts both describe as the first book written, illustrated, printed, and bound entirely by Maya people in over four hundred years — and the first of its kind published by Maya women specifically. The workshop's publications carry Tzotzil songs, poetry, and oral history into print in a language that had rarely if ever seen its own press before. In 2021, Mexico's Ministry of Culture awarded the taller its National Prize for Arts and Literature in the Popular Arts and Traditions category.
Beyond books, the shop's current catalogue runs to handmade notebooks, posters, photo albums and frames, woodcuts and engravings, postcards, and sheets of handmade paper sold on their own, all produced on-site by the same collective that keeps the bindery running.
South Beach
TASCHEN's Miami Beach flagship on Lincoln Road, inside a Herzog and de Meuron building with a Philippe Starck-designed interior of floor-to-ceiling murals and hand-poured terrazzo floors, selling the publisher's large-format art and photography books.
Best for Art and photography
TASCHEN's Miami store sits at 1111 Lincoln Road, within a landmark building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architects Herzog and de Meuron, in the heart of Miami Beach's pedestrian shopping strip near the city's Art Deco Historic District. The interior was designed by Philippe Starck, featuring floor-to-ceiling murals and an elaborately patterned, hand-poured terrazzo floor. As with TASCHEN's other flagship stores, the Miami location sells the publisher's large-format, richly illustrated books spanning art, photography, fashion, film and design.
Capitol Street
Taylor Books combines an independent bookshop and café on Capitol Street in Charleston, West Virginia. Books and magazines share the shop with cards, while the Annex Gallery presents contemporary art and handmade work. The business also offers art classes through its studio programme.
Best for Books, coffee and a craft gallery in Charleston
Taylor Books was opened by Ann Saville in 1995 on Capitol Street in downtown Charleston, West Virginia. It has become one of the fixtures the city measures itself by. It is at once an independent bookshop and a coffee shop, with a cafe and an art gallery inside the same building, and the combination reads as designed rather than accumulated.
The bookshop carries a broad general selection. The part regulars rate is the magazine rack, a wide range of hard-to-find titles, alongside a collection of cards and gifts chosen with the same eye.
The Annex is where it stops being only a bookshop. The Annex Gallery shows local contemporary art and handmade craft, and the Annex Studios run classes.
The building therefore supports the people making work as well as selling it, which is rarer than it sounds for a shop this size. The cafe does scones and coffee and plainly expects you to sit down with them. The magazines bring people in and whatever is hanging in the Annex tends to keep them there.
Bonn-Südstadt
The Art of Books is an independent bookshop and café in Bonn's Südstadt, a residential quarter of Gründerzeit townhouses south of the centre. It pairs a curated selection of books with a café counter, doubling as a reading spot and a place to buy titles.
Best for Independent bookshop with a café
Downtown Davis (2nd Street)
The Avid Reader is an independent Davis bookshop that opened under that name in 1987. It trades at 617 Second Street, where local reporting also documents an author-event programme. A 2025 Davis Enterprise profile identifies Erin and Brett Arnold as its owners.
Best for Books and author events in Davis
The Avid Reader opened under that name in Davis on January 5, 1987. A Davis Enterprise history explains that Alzada Knickerbocker bought Orpheus Books on E Street and renamed the business. The shop later moved to 617 Second Street, the address also given in the newspaper’s 2025 profile. That later report identifies Erin and Brett Arnold as owners, so the founder’s story should not be mistaken for a current ownership claim. Books remain the reason to visit, with author appearances forming part of the shop’s documented programme. The 2025 coverage describes visits by writers including Karen Joy Fowler and Mac Barnett during the preceding year. Those appearances are history, not an event schedule for a future trip. The two reports together show a neighbourhood bookseller with a changing programme rather than a fixed literary attraction. Before travelling for a particular author or title, confirm the current event listing or availability with the shop. The newspaper’s readers’ award records a specific vote, not a universal ranking of bookshops.
North Front Street / Regent Street, Belize City
The Book Center is located in Belize City. It stocks school books for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary level schools in Belize.
Best for Primary secondary and tertiary school books
Centre Street, Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island
Set in a historic downtown building on Centre Street, this independent Fernandina Beach bookstore curates fiction, local-interest reads and children's titles. Author events and signings keep the shelves close to the community.
Best for Independent bookshop, local-interest titles, book signings
Johnston Road
Long-running used bookstore off Johnston Road selling secondhand titles, most priced at eight dollars or less, with a trade-in credit system. It carries a deep rotating stock across fiction and genre.
Best for Affordable used books
Broughty Ferry
A family-run bookshop in Broughty Ferry stocking fiction, manga and children's titles alongside signed and indie-exclusive editions. It runs eight community book clubs and hosts author events for local schools.
Best for Signed and independent-bookshop-exclusive editions, plus eight in-house community book clubs
Broughty Ferry's family-run bookshop stocks fiction, young-adult and children's titles alongside manga, graphic novels and a growing romantasy section, without slipping into indistinct chain-store range. Vintage collector's classics and special editions sit near a case of author-signed and independent-bookshop-exclusive copies, often priced below their high-street equivalents. The shop runs eight separate book clubs -- an unusually deep community program for a single-site bookshop -- plus author events organized for local schools and general readers. A mailing list of more than 2,000 subscribers gets first access to signed-edition drops before they reach the shop floor. Online orders can be collected in-store or shipped, with free UK delivery above £30, extending the shop's reach well past Broughty Ferry. For children, the shop stocks dedicated audiobook players alongside activity, sticker and coloring books, treating younger readers as a distinct audience rather than an afterthought. It is a small operation that leans on close relationships -- staff give personalized recommendations, and the volume of repeat, detailed customer reviews suggests a shop that knows its regulars by name. Broughty Ferry, a seaside suburb of Dundee, gets an independent bookshop with the range and community programming more often found in larger cities.
Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA
The Bookloft has sold new books in Great Barrington since 1974, with a staff known for wide reading across genres and hands-on recommendations. The independent shop hosts author events and ships titles from its own online store.
Best for Independent bookshop browsing
Jericho
Bookstore in Ibadan operated by Masobe Books, selling African literature drawn from the publisher's own catalogue of titles.
Best for African literature and books
Smith Street Mall
Owner Anna Savvas runs Darwin's only locally-owned independent new bookstore, moved to Smith Street Mall in 2014, with strong sections on Aboriginal culture and Territory history. The shop sources out-of-print titles globally and hosts author signings, launches and children's events.
Best for Territory and Aboriginal-culture titles
Lenox
Matt Tannenbaum has run The Bookstore on Housatonic Street in Lenox since 1976, a warmly cluttered independent that has anchored the town for over four decades and inspired the documentary Hello, Bookstore. It shares its rooms with the Shade Gallery and Get Lit, a wine bar where customers browse with a glass in hand.
Best for Independent bookselling and a wine bar
Davenport, Iowa
Open since 2017 at 1524 North Harrison Street in Davenport, The Brewed Book pairs a used bookstore with a coffee and Italian-soda bar. It hosts weekly role-playing game nights on Thursdays and console game nights on Fridays.
Best for Coffee, used books and tabletop gaming nights since 2017
The Brewed Book is a father-and-son business: Tony Fuhs and his son Trevor bought a vacant building at 1524 North Harrison Street in Davenport's Hilltop Campus Village and spent nearly two years and a considerable amount of their own money bringing it back to life before opening in 2017. The idea, Trevor's originally, was to combine three things in one space rather than choosing between them — a coffee shop, a used bookstore and a spot for tabletop gaming — because the neighborhood didn't have anywhere that functioned as a hangout. That combination still defines the place: an espresso and Italian-soda bar sits alongside shelves of used and new books, with regular role-playing game nights on Thursdays and console game nights on Fridays filling the space after hours. The Fuhs family has also made a point of supporting Quad Cities authors directly — buying local writers' books for the shelves, giving them physical display space, and hosting reading events rather than treating the bookstore side as just inventory to sell through. It's a small, deliberately mixed-use model built by two people fixing up one empty storefront rather than a chain concept dropped into a college neighborhood.
65 Wharf Street, Salem, Massachusetts
The Cauldron Black deals in traditional witchcraft supplies, from botanical and folklore books to divination tools and hand-made poppets. Spiritual consultations round out what the Wharf Street shop offers.
Best for Occult books and traditional witchcraft supplies
6-7 Beer Cart Lane, Canterbury
The Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing in secondhand, antiquarian and rare titles, with prints, maps and ephemera among the stock. A member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and ILAB, it is Canterbury's principal antiquarian bookseller.
Best for Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing
15 Rajpur Road, Dehradun
Established in 1923 and run by four generations of the same family, this Rajpur Road bookshop pairs its shelves with a book cafe added in 2010. It awards the annual Snehlata Prize to people who promote reading and supports literacy initiatives across the Doon Valley.
Best for Books and a reading cafe
Hilton Head Island, SC
The island's Gullah heritage museum at 12 Georgianna Drive keeps a small shop of culturally rooted goods, including the Gullah 'De Nyew Testament' Bible, hand fans and museum-branded pieces. Proceeds support its work preserving Gullah language and history on Hilton Head.
Best for Gullah heritage goods
Temple Bar
Bob Johnston opened The Gutter Bookshop on Cow's Lane in Temple Bar in 2009, its name taken from Oscar Wilde's line about looking at the stars from the gutter. A second branch followed in Dalkey in 2013, both known for hand-selling fiction and children's books.
Best for Independent-bookshop browsing and children's titles
High Street, Burford
An independent bookshop on the High Street that also sells hats, a nod that gives it its name, stocking new titles across fiction, children's and Cotswolds interest. It is home to the Burford Literary Festival and runs regular author events.
Best for Books and hats
Fish Creek, Door County, Wisconsin
A full-service Door County bookstore on Main Street in Fish Creek, billing itself as your peninsula bookshop. It ran a second Sister Bay branch until 2021 and now trades from its single Fish Creek storefront.
Best for Browsing an independent bookshop
King Street
Retail arm of the Preservation Society of Charleston, the country's oldest community-based historic preservation organization, founded in 1920. It stocks Charleston-made prints, books, textiles, and the annual commemorative Christmas ornament, with proceeds funding advocacy for the city's historic buildings.
Best for Charleston prints, books, and ornaments
Ninth Street, Durham, NC
The Regulator Bookshop has sold new books at 720 Ninth Street in Durham since 1976, two blocks from Duke University. Tom Campbell and Aden Field joined David Birkhead's Regulator Press that year and turned the print shop into a bookstore. Longtime employees Wander Lorentz de Haas and Elliot Berger bought the shop in 2017. They keep its focus on small presses and author events.
Best for General-interest new books
The Regulator Bookshop takes its name from the North Carolinians who rose against colonial authorities in the 1760s. The founders chose it while running a small printing press on Ninth Street. David Birkhead, a Duke graduate, started the Regulator Press in 1974 to print for grassroots organisations. Two years later fellow alumni Tom Campbell and Aden Field joined him. The trio began selling books, and the shop opened in 1976 two blocks from the Duke campus. Field left in 1978 and John Valentine joined Campbell. The two ran the store together until both retired in 2017. They sold it to Wander Lorentz de Haas and Elliot Berger, employees of long standing who kept the culture they inherited. That culture favours small presses and the tastes of the neighbourhood over bestseller tables. The room is not large. A new-arrivals section at the entrance carries titles the owners and staff have read and liked. A mural of a balloon and a camel carrying books marks the children's corner, and two worn couches serve as a reading nook. The shop has hosted Margaret Atwood, John Hope Franklin and Al Gore. It still runs author events through a dedicated events desk. The drugstore and grills that shared the street in 1976 have closed, and the Regulator became the longest-standing business on Ninth Street. A 2024 profile in the 9th Street Journal describes local schools and book clubs treating it as a meeting place for the neighbourhood.
Five Points, Wellman Avenue, Huntsville, Alabama
Lady Smith and Christina Tabereaux founded The Snail on the Wall in 2017 as a bookstore without a store, running pop-up shops and author events before opening a permanent location at 816 Wellman Avenue in Five Points in September 2024. The shop curates fiction and bookish gifts and offers personalized recommendations to customers.
Best for Curated fiction and personalized book recommendations
Bluffton
The Storybook Shoppe is an independent children's bookstore stocking picture books, chapter books and toys, with a reading nook and regular story-time events. The Bluffton shop curates its shelves for young readers and hosts visiting authors.
Best for Children's books and gifts
127 Main Street, Ennis, MT
A fly shop in southwest Montana, trading on Main Street in Ennis since 1937 and an Orvis-endorsed outfitter since 1991. The counter rigs anglers for the Madison River with rods, flies, and apparel, and the outfitting side books guided float and wade trips.
Best for Fly-fishing gear and guided Madison River trips
Chester village
The Village Emporium sits in the heart of Chester village, stocking home décor, kitchenware, toys, books, cards, and locally made Nova Scotian goods. The independent general store carries seasonal gifts and gourmet food alongside stationery.
Best for Gifts and home goods
Glastonbury / Online
Run since 2003 by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams, the Witchcraft Shop supplies the pagan and esoteric community with what it bills as Europe's largest range of raw herbs, alongside essential oils, robes, wands and occult books. Orders are placed through its online store and posted on Mondays and Thursdays, as the shop keeps no walk-in visitor facilities.
Best for Herbs, occult, pagan-supplies, esoteric-books
Thun, Bernese Oberland
Gift shop at Thun's medieval castle overlooking the lake and Alps. Regional crafts, books on Bernese Oberland history, and specialty products from the region.
Best for Regional crafts, books on Bernese Oberland history
Downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia
Trident pairs new and used books with craft-roasted coffee and loose-leaf tea in one Hollis Street room. The Halifax fixture hosts live music and keeps its doors open into the evening most weeknights.
Best for Trident pairs new and used books with craft-roasted coffee and loose-leaf tea
Trident traces to a Boulder, Colorado bookshop founded by Hudson and Janet Shotwell, who opened a Halifax location on Argyle Street in 1992 as a sister store combining bookselling, coffee roasting, and tea. That original Boulder shop still operates today. The Halifax branch moved to its current Hollis Street address in 2000, and the Shotwells ran it until their retirement in 2015, when the business passed to Tracy Stevens. Three decades on, the shop still functions as both a specialty coffee roaster and a used bookseller in one downtown room, with a stock built around literature, philosophy, theory and criticism, and general oddities rather than bestseller-driven inventory. Craft-roasted coffee and loose-leaf teas are served at a counter that shares space with the secondhand shelves, and the shop doubles as a neighborhood events venue. Unlike many combined book-café concepts that treat the coffee as an afterthought, Trident's founding model paired the two trades from day one — roasting and bookselling as parallel, equally weighted businesses under one roof, a structure inherited unchanged from its Colorado origin and still intact after three ownership-era changes.
Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert
A French-language bookshop set in a former ballroom in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, with gilded mirrors and stucco framing its literature, humanities and children's sections. It is among Brussels' larger independent booksellers and hosts readings and signings.
Best for French literature and humanities
Willamette Street, South Eugene, Oregon
This South Eugene shop on Willamette Street shelves more than 30,000 new and used titles alongside vinyl and rotating work by local artists. It doubles as a performance space, having hosted thousands of readings, concerts, and workshops over two decades.
Best for Used books and community events
Tsunami Books is an independent, locally owned bookstore at 2585 Willamette Street in South Eugene, Oregon. Its hand-picked stock runs to over 30,000 used and new books. Cards and postcards sit alongside a small collection of vinyl LPs and rotating art and crafts from the local community. Many of the shelves and fixtures come from recycled sources, including reclaimed bleacher boards from more than 20 school gymnasiums across the Northwest. Over its years on Willamette Street the shop has hosted more than 3,000 community activities. These range from author events and writers' workshops to poetry slams and concerts, and once a wedding. Scott Landfield has been a worker and owner of Tsunami Books for 29 years. He came to Oregon in 1978 to plant trees and planted over two million of them across a 20-year career. Eugene Weekly reported in 2021 that the store had started a publishing arm, Tsunami Press, formed in July 2021 with editors Steve Ellerhoff and Valerie Ihsan. Its first title was Ken Babbs' Cronies, a memoir of adventures with Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead. After thirty years of paying rent, the shop is now asking supporters to help it buy the property. New titles are discounted and orders ship free anywhere in the United States.
Mid-City
Tubby & Coo’s combines an independent bookstore with board games, events and community programming. The selection foregrounds diverse and marginalised voices, making the shop as much a gathering place as a bookseller.
Best for A tribally-owned bookstore and board-game café with community events
Odesa / Ukraine
Odesa is one of Ukraine's most Russified cities, and for twenty years this Yevropeiska Street bookstore-café has stocked Ukrainian-language titles from more than 100 publishers while hosting author meetings and reading clubs. Browse and order online, or visit to pair a book with a cup of coffee.
Best for Ukrainian-language books and coffee with more than 100 publishers represented on the shelves
Odesa is one of Ukraine's most Russified cities, and for twenty years this Yevropeiska Street shop has run under the motto "Ukraine in Odesa, Odesa in Ukraine" as the region's leading vendor of Ukrainian-language history, philosophy, and cultural titles, drawing on more than 100 Ukrainian publishers. Beyond the counter, the store organizes author meetings, rural outreach visits, children's readings, and conversation clubs, and takes part in the annual Lypky Readings and the Ukrainian Book in Odesa forum as well as international literary festivals; roughly fifty contemporary Ukrainian authors had their first Odesa presentation through the shop. Its activity has extended into wartime relief work, including support for a Crimea-relocated maritime college's library and book distribution to soldiers. The café side keeps the format simple — a cup of coffee alongside new releases and academic and popular history titles, sold in-store or through the shop's own delivery. It is a rare combination in the region: a book-loving atmosphere built specifically around Ukrainian-language publishing, in a city where that selection has historically been hard to find, run for two decades as much as a cultural project as a retail one.
Duke Street
Founded in 1969 as Cathach Books and on Duke Street since 1988, Ulysses Rare Books deals in twentieth-century Irish literature. First editions and signed works by Joyce, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney fill the shelves.
Best for First editions and rare Irish literature
Santos / Online
Underdogs combines an urban-art gallery with a shop selling prints, books and limited editions. The retail component gives visitors a way to buy work beyond the current exhibition.
Best for Street art prints and urban culture.
High Street, CBD
An independent bookshop at 19 High Street, with the little Unity children's shop on Vulcan Lane. A fixture of Auckland's literary life.
Best for Independent bookshop browsing and NZ titles
Willis Street
Alan Preston founded Unity Books in Wellington in 1967, stocking history, philosophy and politics in a shop four feet wide at its narrowest. It has traded at 57 Willis Street since 1998, with a sister shop on High Street in Auckland opened in 1989. The Wellington shop is co-owned by Tilly Lloyd and runs around forty-five author events and launches each year. Staff picks and special orders anchor the floor of the Willis Street shop.
Best for Books and stationery at a Wellington independent founded in 1967
Alan Preston opened Unity Books in 1967 in a Wellington space four feet wide at its narrowest, in the old Empire Building on Willis Street. He was a cricket and soccer player who turned to philosophy after his brother was killed by a cricket ball in 1960. The stock he chose reflected that turn, running to history, classics, philosophy, politics. The shop moved four times in Wellington before settling at 57 Willis Street in 1998. An Auckland branch opened on High Street in 1989, and a children's shop called Little Unity followed next door in 2018. After Preston died in 2005, the Wellington and Auckland shops were re-incorporated separately under staff ownership. Tilly Lloyd co-owns the Wellington shop, which has been managed since November 2024 by Susanna Andrew, formerly editor of North and South. The shop runs roughly forty-five author events and launches a year, and its September calendar alone lists book launches on four separate evenings. Booksellers keep a staff picks wall and take special orders, including imports. Unity states its own position plainly on its about page, describing a space where anyone can sit and think in public without being pressed to buy.
Airport Road, Simpson Bay
Van Dorp is at Airport Road 41 in Simpson Bay, St. Maarten. Alongside its other services, it has a bookstore section with popular reads and local books.
Best for Books
Middlebury Vt / United States
A Middlebury fixture on Main Street, the Vermont Book Shop is an independent bookseller with staff picks, local and Middlebury College authors, and regular events. Books, audiobooks, gift cards and merch can be ordered online or bought in the store.
Best for Books, audiobooks, gift cards and merch can be ordered online or bought
Cork city centre
A Cork bookshop stocking new, bargain and second-hand titles across fiction, children's books, comics and graphic novels, with an art and craft floor of wool, fabric and fine-art materials. It is independently run, with a store locator and a Cork phone line on its site.
Best for Books and craft supplies
Victor
Husband-and-wife owners Skye and Whitney opened this independent bookstore at 38 West Birch Street in Victor to fill a gap in Teton Valley's reading life. The curated shelves lean toward diverse authors and fiction, and the shop runs several book clubs.
Best for Curated new books and book clubs
Groningen, Netherlands
This English-language bookshop at Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 10 carries fiction, poetry, social sciences, nature, history, design, and cookbooks alongside picture books, postcards, and posters. It is the English-language counterpart of the Dutch bookseller Godert Walter and hosts events in a room at the back.
Best for English-language books
Hawke's Bay, Napier / Havelock North
Wardini Books, at 16 Te Mata Road, Havelock North, with a second shop in Napier, stocks fiction, children's and young adult titles, non-fiction, books in Te Reo Maori and cookery titles alongside stationery. The shop features staff-curated picks and offers click-and-collect and pre-orders.
Best for General and te reo maori bookshop
Front Street
An independent bookshop on Front Street that mixes new and used titles with magazines, newspapers, greeting cards and work by area artists. The staff take special orders and ship books to readers along the Waccamaw.
Best for New and used books and local art
Kalverstraat
British bookshop chain's Amsterdam branch on Kalverstraat, open since 1998 in a listed Hendrik Berlage-designed building on the corner of Spui; four floors of English-language titles plus author events.
Best for English-language fiction and nonfiction
Waterstones, the UK bookshop chain founded in 1982 by Tim Waterstone, has operated its Amsterdam store since 1998 - its long-running presence outside the UK, Ireland and Belgium. The shop occupies a listed building designed by the prominent Dutch architect Hendrik Berlage, on the corner of Kalverstraat and Spui in the historic city centre. Spread across four floors, it carries an extensive English-language selection and regularly hosts author signings, readings and other events, drawing both local English-reading residents and tourists.
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