Cracow keeps an English-language shelf while Warsaw keeps the scholars supplied; one national chain fills the gap between them. Jak Wam Się Podoba has kept English-language books, albums, art books since 1992. The Główna Księgarnia Naukowa on Warsaw's academic row trades in independent books, maps, manuscripts, paper goods from Warsaw. Empik fills the Nowy Świat flagship with Polish and English books, music, gifts. Second-hand Polish editions from the postwar decades are the quiet bargains; the printing year on the title page separates them from reprints.
Krakow's Grzegorzki covered market hall (ul. Grzegorzecka 14), built 1936-1940; weekday stalls sell bread, cured meats, dairy and produce, while every Sunday from 6am the hall and adjoining lot host the city's largest flea market of antiques, books and vintage goods until roughly 2pm.
Best for Fresh food stalls, second-hand goods, and a Sunday flea market.
Hala Targowa sits in Krakow's Grzegorzki district, about a kilometer from the Old Town, on the site of a former Augustinian monastery. Krakow's city council decided in the late 1920s to move food trading off the streets and into purpose-built, sanitary market halls. Formal plans for this hall were developed in 1936 by architect Juliusz Dumnicki, with construction starting shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939; the hall opened on 17 August 1940. On weekdays the hall and its surrounding lot function as a conventional food market. Every Sunday from around 6am the site transforms into what several travel guides call Krakow's largest and most popular flea market, known locally as Unitarg.
Located on level 0 of Warsaw's POLIN Museum at 6 Anielewicza Street, Austeria at POLIN is run by the Austeria publishing house and sells books on Jewish history, culture, and literature alongside museum catalogues and Judaica. The bookstore is open without a museum admission ticket and also sells through its own online shop.
Bęc Zmiana publishes and sells Polish design books, graphic art and locally designed objects in Warsaw. The shop connects a cultural foundation’s editorial work with tangible products and editions.
Best for Polish-designed objects, books, and graphic art from a design publisher
Opened in May 1952 as a Dom Książki and PIW bookshop at Krakowskie Przedmieście 7 — the Grodzicki tenement, and the address Prus gave Wokulski's shop in Lalka. Renamed on 19 May 1962, fifty years after Prus's death. Wprost ranked it Warsaw's best bookshop in 2006.
Best for Books at the Warsaw address associated with Wokulski’s shop in Lalka.
Conservation-grade book and paper binding, plus custom folders and boxes, from a Warsaw workshop staffed by an Academy of Fine Arts-trained conservator.
Best for Conservation-grade book and paper binding, plus custom folders and boxes
Introligatornia Rozmus works from ul. Joteyki 20 in Warsaw, and its own site states its core trade plainly: folders and boxes, and binding of books and notebooks, alongside conservation work on paper and leather objects. That conservation side is backed by a named credential rather than left as an unverifiable craft claim — the workshop states its conservator holds a diploma from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts and works with certified conservation materials, which places the workshop's restoration work on a different footing from a purely decorative bindery.
The workshop describes its own origin loosely rather than with a founding date: it says it "arose from love of paper and passion for creation," a self-description quoted directly here rather than expanded into an invented history.
Alongside commissioned binding and conservation work, Rozmus runs bookbinding workshops at the Warsaw Uprising Museum and hosts weekend classes for both schools and adult learners, a public-education role layered on top of, not instead of, its commissioned bindery work. Rozmus is a small, currently operating and credentialed bindery rather than a large production house. Its value lies in the combination of commissioned binding, conservation and public teaching.
The Museum of Warsaw's online bookshop specializes in Varsaviana, offering books, exhibition catalogues, maps, and city-themed keepsakes drawn from the museum's collections. Running on the Shoper e-commerce platform, it ships across Poland and lists titles such as "In Between: A Short History of Warsaw" alongside historic city map reprints.
Best for Varsaviana books, exhibition catalogues, and historic Warsaw map reprints
The Warsaw Uprising Museum shop sells books, comics, photography albums, music, apparel and collectibles connected to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Its current catalogue includes museum-branded pins and caps alongside specialist publications, vinyl releases and children’s material, giving visitors and online buyers a focused source for exhibition-related history, design and commemorative objects tied directly to the museum’s collections and public memory work.
Founded in October 2018, Tajfuny is a Warsaw bookshop and publishing house devoted to East Asian literature, with a storefront on Chmielna Street in Śródmieście and a sister location in Kraków, publishing Polish translations of authors including Yoko Ogawa, Hiromi Kawakami and Ranpo Edogawa.
Best for East Asian literature and culture from this publisher-bookshop
Tajfuny was founded in October 2018 as a publishing house specializing narrowly in Japanese and wider East Asian literature translated into Polish, a niche few other Polish publishers had focused on at that scale. Alongside publishing, the company runs its own bookshops, including a storefront on Chmielna Street in Warsaw's central Śródmieście district and a second location in Kraków, both stocking curated selections of Asian literature in translation as well as the press's own titles. Its catalog includes Polish editions of authors such as Kanoko Okamoto, Ranpo Edogawa, Yoko Ogawa and Hiromi Kawakami, produced with qualified translators and editors working from the original Japanese and other East Asian languages. The publisher also maintains an online store that ships internationally, extending its reach beyond its two physical locations. Tajfuny's opening in Warsaw drew a large crowd according to Polish book-trade press coverage at the time, reflecting existing appetite among Polish readers for East Asian fiction previously served mostly by import copies or occasional single-title translations from larger houses.
For six decades this Poznań antiquarian bookshop on ul. Paderewskiego has stocked rare Polish first editions, historical maps, and postcards for collectors and casual browsers alike. Its online catalogue ranges from a signed Czesław Miłosz volume to century-old prints of the city, all shippable worldwide.
An independent bookstore specializing in English-language books, albums and art books. Established 1992.
Best for English-language books, albums, and art books since 1992
Jak Wam się podoba is a compact, twenty-square-metre bookshop on the corner of Wilczej and Emilii Plater streets in central Warsaw, close to the Palace of Culture and Science. Since opening in 1992, in the first years after Poland's transition away from state socialism -- when independent bookselling and access to foreign-language titles were still new freedoms -- the shop has built a reputation as an intimate alternative to Warsaw's chain bookstores, deliberately avoiding the dense, standardized shelving typical of larger retailers. Its stock centers on illustrated and art-focused books: albums on art, photography, fashion, architecture, design, and cuisine sit alongside pop-culture titles, English-language fiction, and children's and young-adult literature spanning both contemporary and classic titles. The shop's small footprint and hand-picked selection have made it a recurring favorite in local 'best bookstore' readers' polls in Warsaw, valued less for breadth of stock than for the specificity of its curation.
M Sklep is the shop of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN), selling art books, posters, and prints tied to the museum's exhibitions and cinema program both online and in person. It also handles ticketing for the museum's guided tours and workshops.
Best for Art books, posters, and prints tied to MSN Warsaw's exhibitions and cinema
Plac Nowy Flea Market is a weekend flea market on Plac Nowy with vintage clothes, books, jewellery, and curiosities. At Kazimierz, the range centers on vintage clothes, books, jewellery, and curiosities at the weekend Plac Nowy market.
Best for Vintage clothes, books, jewellery, and curiosities at the weekend Plac Nowy market
Official shop of the Wawel Royal Castle State Art Collections, the seat of Polish kings since the 14th century; sells items tied to the collection, including pieces referencing the Renaissance Sigismund Chapel (1517–33).
Best for Replicas of royal treasures, books, and Polish crafts at the royal castle
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Visit official site ↗
Open city/visitor reference ↗
Visit official site ↗