Dutch bookselling rewards the browser in Amsterdam and beyond. Scheltema spreads multistorey Dutch and English book browsing across Amsterdam, in a building that invites getting lost. Athenaeum gathers international magazines, literature, serious periodicals at Spui 14-16. MENDO serves as the candy store for book aficionados. Arrive with a list and allow yourself one discovery off it. Carry a tote bag; art books punish the arms.
Independent Amsterdam bookshop at Spui 14-16, opened in 1966 by Johan Polak and Rob van Gennep; known for its classical antiquity section and, since 1969, a large newsstand of Dutch and international magazines and periodicals.
Best for International magazines, literature and serious periodicals
Athenaeum Boekhandel en Nieuwscentrum occupies a Dutch Baroque building at Spui 14-16 in central Amsterdam, on the square that hosts the city's weekly book market. It opened in 1966, founded by Johan Polak and Rob van Gennep, and in 1976 restructured to offer staff co-ownership, a step that anchored its identity as an independently run shop rather than a chain outlet. The store is known for Dutch and international literature, history and politics titles, and a well-regarded classical antiquity section; since 1969 it has also run a large newsstand carrying Dutch and international magazines, newspapers and zines. In 2024, Athenaeum Boekhandel BV took over the shares of the older Amsterdam bookseller Scheltema (founded 1853), and the two now operate together as the Athenaeum | Scheltema group.
MENDO calls itself a candy store for book lovers and the Nine Streets shop proves it — photography, fashion and design volumes stacked in black-walled perfection, plus MENDO's own published titles.
MENDO is a bookseller and publisher specialising in visual books that place art and design among their central subjects. Photography and architecture sit alongside fashion and lifestyle titles, while the publishing business works with creative collaborators on new books. Customers can browse published titles online or contact the business about its publishing work and editorial support.
Best for Visual books on art, photography and design
MENDO combines bookselling with publishing, specialising in visual books across art and design rather than a general reading catalogue. Architecture and photography share space in the selection with books about fashion and lifestyle subjects. The physical book matters to this selection as an object, as well as a way to carry images and text.
The publishing side works with brands and other creative collaborators to develop books, including collector's editions and editorial support. That is a different service from buying a finished title through the shop. A commissioned publication calls for a project discussion, whereas a retail purchase starts with the subject and format of an existing book.
For a purchase, compare the treatment of the subject as well as the cover that first attracts attention. A photographic volume may suit a different reader from a book focused on architecture or interiors. For a physical visit, check MENDO's current contact information rather than assuming that an earlier shop address is still in use today.
Amsterdam bookshop tracing to 1853, when Jacobus Hendrik Scheltema opened his first shop; moved into a five-storey, 3,200-square-metre store on the Rokin in 2015, and since 2024 has operated as Athenaeum | Scheltema under new ownership.
Best for Multistorey Dutch and English book browsing
Scheltema traces to 1853, when Jacobus Hendrik Scheltema opened a bookshop in Amsterdam at the corner of Kromelleboogsteeg and Beursstraat. The business changed hands and names repeatedly over the following century: it became Scheltema & Holkema's Boekhandel under Tjomme van Holkema, was sold to Klaas Groesbeek in January 1882, and moved to a new building at Rokin 74 three years later. The store operated independently until 1970, when it became part of the publishing group Kluwer. It later relocated to Koningsplein, where it remained from 1985 until May 2015, when it moved into a new five-storey building on the Rokin — a 3,200-square-metre store that became one of the largest bookshops in Europe, stocking roughly 120,000 titles at any time and receiving over 1,000 new books on busy days. Ownership changed again in 2014, when Novamedia (parent of the Dutch Postcode Lottery) acquired the business; Novamedia held it until 2024, when Athenaeum Boekhandel took over and began operating the store under the combined name Athenaeum | Scheltema. Despite the ownership and branding change, the shop continues to trade from its Rokin address under the historic Scheltema name in everyday use.
Open daily inside the Stedelijk Museum on Museumplein, this shop is the first Dutch outpost of Buchhandlung Walther Konig, stocking an international range of art, design, and photography books. Alongside the books are postcards, prints, Dutch and international design objects, jewelry, textiles, and a substantial children's book section.
A family-owned English-language bookstore founded in Amsterdam in 1972 by American entrepreneurs Sam Boltansky and Mitch Crossfield; its Amsterdam flagship moved to a 160-year-old former gentlemen's-club building on the Spui in 2006.
Best for English-language books and magazines
The American Book Center began in 1972, when American entrepreneurs Sam Boltansky and Mitch Crossfield opened what they initially called the American Discount Book Center on Amsterdam's Kalverstraat, importing remaindered English-language books from the United States to sell in the Netherlands. The business grew from that single import-focused shop into a multi-store, family-owned chain that has stayed independent for over five decades, adding locations in The Hague and Leidschendam alongside Amsterdam. Its best-known address today is on the Spui, a small square in central Amsterdam near the Begijnhof, where the store relocated in October 2006 into a building with its own layered history: over roughly 160 years it had previously housed a gentlemen's cultural club, a luxury jewelry store, and a grand piano showroom before becoming a bookstore. The Spui shop spans multiple floors stocked with English-language fiction, nonfiction and periodicals and has appeared on various 'most beautiful bookshops' lists compiled by travel and design publications. The business has stayed under the same family ownership structure since its 1972 founding, a continuity that is unusual among Amsterdam retail businesses of its size and age.
Founded in 1994 by Alie Berger and Michel de Vries, this antiquarian and secondhand shop on Pelsterstraat carries books from modern to centuries old alongside maps, prints, vinyl records, and photographs. It runs a fortnightly Bookmaker event that puts out around 2,000 secondhand books on alternating Wednesdays.
Best for Centuries-old books, maps, and vinyl at the fortnightly 2,000-book Bookmaker event
Set inside a 13th-century Gothic Dominican church, this independent Maastricht bookshop shelves its stock in a multi-storey steel bookcase beneath restored ceiling frescoes. It carries books, CDs and vinyl in store and ships orders across the Netherlands.
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.
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.
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.
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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