118 stores · curated ORBIS register
Science fiction and crime have dedicated space at Abbey's Bookshop, the Sydney bookseller established by Ron and Eve Abbey. Its York Street premises also house Galaxy upstairs, giving genre readers a separate section to explore. Las Vegas's Amber Unicorn Books buys and sells used books, with science fiction and military history among its subjects. In Helsinki, Antikvariaatti Sofia trades in second-hand books on Vuorikatu, continuing a business that began under Seppo Hiltunen.
Inman Park
Founded in 1989 in Inman Park, A Cappella Books deals in new, used and rare titles. Its author events and antiquarian selection draw readers and collectors alike.
Best for Independent bookselling, signed and antiquarian titles, author events
CBD
Sydney genre bookshop founded 1968 by Ron and Eve Abbey, now at 131 York Street opposite the Queen Victoria Building, with sci-fi/fantasy sister store Galaxy Bookshop upstairs.
Best for Specialist sci-fi and crime bookshop.
Abbey's Bookshop was founded in Sydney in 1968 by Ron and Eve Abbey at 115 Pitt Street, moving a year later into the Queen Victoria Building. Following the QVB's 1980s restoration it relocated to 66 King Street, where the family also ran Penguin Bookshop (from 1977) and Oxford and Cambridge Bookshop (from 1978); all three moved to the current premises at 131 York Street, opposite the QVB, in 1986. A dedicated genre imprint, Galaxy Bookshop, specializing in science fiction, fantasy and horror, opened separately in 1975 and now operates from the same building. Ron Abbey retired in 1994; after later co-shareholders also retired, Eve Abbey became sole shareholder, with her son Alan Abbey serving as managing director.
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Trading since 1981, this used and rare bookshop stocks deep shelves of science fiction, fantasy, military history, and occult titles that outlast the trend cycles of Strip retail. Staff buy, sell, and trade stock directly with customers, keeping the inventory local rather than routed through a distributor.
Best for Used and rare science fiction and occult books
Vuorikatu 5, 00100 Helsinki, Finland / Helsinki / Finland
Antikvariaatti Seppo Hiltunen founded 1985 became Antikvariaatti Sofia Oy in 2005 and moved to Vuorikatu after the Sofiankatu lease ended; MyHelsinki confirms the current second-hand bookshop at Vuorikatu 5.
Best for MyHelsinki confirms the current second-hand bookshop at Vuorikatu 5.
Haga (Husargatan)
Antikvariat Rode Orm has traded second-hand and antiquarian books from Haga's historic quarter on Husargatan since 1986. Its shelves run from 16th- to 18th-century volumes and fine bindings to maritime history, chess literature and vintage children's books.
Best for 16th- to 18th-century books, bindings and maritime literature
Limburger Straße 10, 50672 Köln, Germany / Cologne / Germany
House site: antiquarian in the Belgian Quarter since 1982 with more than 100,000 works. ILAB affiliate page independently prints Limburger Straße 10, the same 1982 location language, and walk-in hours Mon–Fri 11:30–18:30, Sat 11:00–15:00.
Best for Independent books and paper goods.
Paddington, Sydney
Ariel Booksellers, established in 1985 and now at 326 Oxford Street, Paddington, is one of Sydney's oldest independent bookshops, focused heavily on art, design and architecture titles. It also stocks poetry, plays, film history and literature alongside cards, tarot decks and gift items.
Best for Art design and architecture books
San Francisco / USA
Books cast in hot metal, letterpress-printed, and hand-bound entirely in one San Francisco workshop since 1974.
Best for Books cast in hot metal, letterpress-printed
Arion Press makes books entirely by hand, describing itself as "the only printer in the United States to make books entirely by hand from comma to cover under one roof." Founded in 1974 as the successor to San Francisco's Grabhorn Press, it operates what it calls the last unified hot-metal type foundry, letterpress workshop, and book bindery still working together in America, based at 2 Marina Boulevard in the Fort Mason Landmark Building, open Tuesday through Saturday.
Arion Press states its foundry equipment once cast type for the United Nations Charter in 1945 — a claim repeated only in the press's own materials, with no independent archival or UN-history source found to corroborate it, so it is reported here as the press's own account rather than established fact. That same hot-metal casting, hand-typesetting, and hand-binding chain is still what produces each Arion edition today. The press pairs classic and contemporary literature with commissioned artists for small, hand-assembled runs — recent titles include Fables of Aesop with artwork by Kiki Smith, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred illustrated by Alison Saar, and A.A. Milne's Pooh illustrated by Sandow Birk.
Arion Press works alongside the affiliated Grabhorn Institute, which runs artist residencies and educational programs on the same premises, extending the craft beyond the press's own book production into teaching typecasting, printing, and binding to a new generation. Half a century after its founding, it remains a working type foundry and bindery, not a museum piece.
Spui
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.
10702 Jasper Ave, Edmonton
Audreys Books is an independent bookstore on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton, with a history under that name dating to 1975. The shop has long hosted author signings and served local readers, with the store itself forming part of the city's literary life. It is a place to browse books and follow author events rather than a specialist in one subject alone.
Best for Independent bookselling and author events in Edmonton
Khan Market, New Delhi
Bahrisons Booksellers is a family-run bookshop in New Delhi's Khan Market, with a history beginning in 1953. Balraj Bahri started the business in post-partition India, and its catalogue now ranges from fiction to specialist non-fiction. Readers can browse children's books as well as titles on subjects such as politics and history through its online shop.
Best for Fiction and wide-ranging non-fiction at a Khan Market bookshop
Kitsilano, Vancouver / Online
Since 1970 Banyen has been Vancouver's harbour for the inner life — dharma, ecology, poetry and healing across one of North America's deepest metaphysical collections.
Best for The West Coast’s spiritual bookstore
Banyen opened in December 1970 out of a stock of books that had collected at the Golden Lotus, a restaurant and natural food store on Fourth Avenue at Bayswater that its founders had spent three years living in and running. Kolin Lymworth had visited Shambhala Books in Berkeley the year before and came back meaning to do something comparable in Vancouver. The name comes from the banyan tree under which Krishna is said to have spoken the Bhagavad Gita, and from the Banyan Ashram that Gary Snyder and Nanao Sakaki founded in Japan; the spelling was changed on the advice of a friend who practised numerology. The first shop opened at 2739 West 4th Avenue in the summer of 1972, an audio wing was added in 1987, and the store now trades at 3608 West 4th at Dunbar. It describes its range as running from acupuncture to Zen, from childbirth and business to the Hermetic mysteries. Lymworth still owned it at the fiftieth anniversary in 2020. A visitor would not find it without being told: it sits at the far western end of a long commercial street, past the beach and well past the Fourth Avenue shopping run, and its subject has no guidebook category to be listed under.
Ojai / United States
Founded in 1964, Bart's is the world's largest outdoor bookstore, its courtyard shelves holding over 130,000 new and used books. Open seven days a week on Matilija Street in Ojai, it welcomes everyone from rare-book hunters to beach-read seekers.
Best for Bookstore, used-books, new-books
Bras Basah
Design bookshop in Singapore's Bras Basah Complex, started in 1985 by Basheer Ahamed as a traveling book salesman and given a permanent storefront in 1991; still family-run by his son Abdul Nasser.
Best for Architecture, illustration and graphic-design books
Stowe Vermont / United States
Bear Pond Books is a second-generation, family-owned bookstore covering more than 3,700 square feet inside the historic Depot Building in Stowe, Vermont, and has traded since 1970. Alongside fiction and children's books, it stocks a large selection of Vermont and New England titles, puzzles, and gift wrap, and still offers curbside pickup.
Best for Alongside fiction and children's books
Charlottetown
Independent bookseller trading on Queen Street since 1972, Bookmark hand-sells new fiction, Atlantic-Canadian titles and children's books and runs a steady calendar of author events. The family-run store keeps a sister shop in Halifax while anchoring downtown Charlottetown's literary life.
Best for Independent bookshop and Atlantic-Canadian titles
Downtown
Operating in downtown Austin since 1970, BookPeople is Texas's largest independent bookstore. It hosts author events and children's storytimes and runs an in-house cafe, CoffeePeople.
Best for Texas's largest indie bookstore, author events, kids' storytimes, and its CoffeePeople cafe
City Centre
Books Upstairs was opened in May 1978 by Maurice Earls and Enda O'Doherty above a furrier on South King Street. After years at 36 College Green it moved in 2015 to a Georgian building at 17 D'Olier Street. The rooms hold new and secondhand stock, and the shop runs a cafe and literary events. Louisa Earls joined the family business with the move.
Best for A literary café and event space at Dublin's long-running bookshop since 1978
Books Upstairs was established in 1978 and is regarded as Dublin's oldest independent general bookshop, occupying a series of interconnecting rooms spread across three floors in two adjoining buildings on D'Olier Street, just south of O'Connell Bridge. The layout reflects the building's age and piecemeal expansion over the decades rather than a single planned retail fit-out, giving the shop a warren-like character as customers move between rooms and levels of general fiction, Irish interest, poetry and children's titles. Upstairs, the shop runs a café with a large original window overlooking D'Olier Street, a space that doubles as an informal reading room and has made the store a fixture of Dublin's literary and event scene, hosting readings and launches over more than four decades of continuous trading. The bookshop has been recognized by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature as part of the city's literary landmarks, cited alongside the capital's better-known literary institutions despite its comparatively modest size. Now well into its fifth decade under continuous independent ownership, Books Upstairs has maintained its identity as a general bookshop through a period in which many comparable independents in central Dublin closed, making its survival as much a part of its story as its stock.
Nairobi / Yaya Centre, Kilimani
Kenya's great independent bookshop since 1989 — Chan Bahal's two floors above Kilimani stock everything from Kenyan fiction and East African history to foreign periodicals, and Nairobi's writers treat it as a clubhouse. The place to find the literature of the region at its source.
Best for East African literature from the shop that champions it.
Turin / Italy
Bottega Fagnola has bound and restored books by hand in Turin since 1955, working on everything from notarial deeds to antique manuscripts at its Via Orvieto workshop under master bookbinder Luciano Fagnola. Its Via San Tommaso shop and online store sell handmade agendas, albums, and notebooks crafted with the same techniques.
Best for Crafts & Stationery, Bookbinding
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Browseabout Books has traded on Rehoboth Avenue since 1975. The independent bookstore pairs its shelves with a selection of local gifts.
Best for Independent books & local gifts
Albertusstraße 6, 50667 Köln, Germany / Cologne / Germany
Founded 1980; Klaus Bittner trained at Walther König and opened his own literary shop as a discussion house for literature and small presses (Literatur in Köln, 2021 guest essay by Bittner).
Best for Literature and small-press discoveries in a Cologne discussion bookshop.
West End
Family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop on Great Western Road at Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End, established 1986, spanning two floors with a strong stock of Scottish literature, history and philosophy titles.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books since 1986
Caledonia Books has traded as a family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop since 1986, on Great Western Road near Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End. The shop is known for a densely packed interior - books arranged in rows on the floor, piled in boxes, and stacked to the ceiling across two floors - with particular strength in Scottish, literature, art, history and philosophy titles. Stock is almost entirely secondhand and sold at modest prices, with genuinely rare or antiquarian volumes the exception rather than the rule.
Paris / Online
Paris paper-art boutique and gallery at 6 Rue du Pont Louis Philippe in the Marais (the 'Rue du Papier'), opened 1979 by Ann Barth as an alternative to conventional stationers. Now run by Vanessa Barth and Marcel Zuger, mixing notebooks and correspondence stationery with work by paper artists and engravers.
Best for French notebooks, fountain pens and serious desk tools
Calligrane was founded in 1979 by Ann Barth, who first opened a Calligrane papeterie in Cannes before establishing the Paris shop at 6 Rue du Pont Louis Philippe in the Marais's 4th arrondissement, nicknamed the 'Rue du Papier.' The shop devotes gallery space to paper artists, engravers and sculptors, hosting exhibitions of their work through the year. It carries notebooks, correspondence stationery, Japanese washi paper, custom printing and small-batch handcrafted paper objects. When founder Ann Barth died in 2011, the business passed to Vanessa Barth and her husband Marcel Zuger, who continue to run it with the same emphasis on discovering and showcasing paper artists.
Phoenix / United States
Changing Hands has sold new and used books to Phoenix and Tempe since 1974, with more than three hundred author events a year. The Camelback Road shop sells in store and online, with audiobooks and bulk education orders besides.
Best for Books, Independent Bookstore, Gifts, Merchandise
Decatur (Agnes Scott College)
Founded in 1974, Charis is the oldest independent feminist bookstore in the South, now sited on the Agnes Scott campus in Decatur.
Best for Feminist, LGBTQ and independent literature plus community events
Middle Street, Latin Quarter
Charlie Byrne's fills the Cornstore on Middle Street with more than 100,000 new, secondhand, bargain and antiquarian titles, with deep sections in Irish literature and history. Founded in 1989, it has grown into a mainstay of Galway's reading life.
Best for Irish and secondhand books
34 K. Dubash Marg, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400023 / Mumbai / India
The Hindu (2016-06-18) dates Chetana Book Centre to September 1946, founded by Sudhakar Dikshit and writer Raja Rao at Kala Ghoda.
Best for A Kala Ghoda book centre dating to 1946.
North Beach, San Francisco
Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in 1953, and it remains both an independent bookstore and a publisher. Its North Beach rooms anchor Beat-era literary San Francisco.
Best for Independent books and Beat heritage
Bangsar
Family-run Malaysian stationery and art-supply chain, founded 1968 by Peter Chen as a Kajang sundry shop. His sons Alvin and Jason Chen opened the Bangsar branch in the early 2000s, bringing in imported brands like Rhodia, Midori and Clairefontaine.
Best for Family-run stationery and art supplies since 1968
CzipLee began in 1968 as a small sundry shop in Kajang, Selangor, started by Peter Chen with capital borrowed from his mother; the shop initially sold candy, newspapers and a limited stationery selection before Chen leaned into the growing demand from students and parents, moving to a larger Kajang premises in 1973. The Kajang store eventually grew to occupy four shop lots. In the early 2000s, Peter's sons Alvin and Jason Chen led an expansion into Kuala Lumpur's Bangsar neighborhood, opening a store aimed at a different, design-conscious customer base and stocking imported brands such as Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Midori and Kokuyo alongside art supplies, craft materials and a children's line called CzipKid. The family business, now trading past its 55th year, operates as CzipLee Retail Sdn Bhd, runs a loyalty programme (CzipFam) and print service (CzipPrint), and sells through both its Bangsar and other Malaysian branches and its e-commerce platform.
Downtown Bend (NW Minnesota Ave)
Dudley's has sold books over coffee on NW Minnesota Avenue in downtown Bend for more than fifty years, since 1973. The two-floor shop pairs new and used titles with a cafe, keeping the feel of an independent neighbourhood bookstore.
Best for New and used books with coffee
Capri town
Founded in Capri in 1989 by Ausilia Veneruso and Riccardo Esposito, La Conchiglia publishes and sells books devoted to the island's history, writers and dolce-vita past. Its bookshops stock island memoirs, photographs and reprints found nowhere else.
Best for Books about Capri and island culture
East Jerusalem
A Muna family bookshop specializing in Arabic- and English-language literature and nonfiction concerning Palestine, Israel, the Middle East, politics, history, and identity. The bookseller operates multiple Jerusalem locations and hosts readings, launches, discussions, and other literary events. Established 1984.
Best for Arabic and English books on Palestine, Israel
The Educational Bookshop opened in Jerusalem in 1984, through what its owners call a simple twist of fate. It has grown into a bookstore focused on Middle Eastern culture and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its two shops face each other on Salah Eddin Street in East Jerusalem. Books & Coffee at number 19 is the flagship, three floors that also house the first Segafredo cafe in Jerusalem. The Stationer at number 22 handles paper goods and office supplies. The book stock is largely research-based work from established institutions and publishers worldwide, alongside Arabic literature. Guidebooks and dictionaries sit with Arabic teaching books. Maps and local and foreign magazines sit with the stationery, along with newspapers and a selection of DVDs and music. The shop offers photocopying and laminating as well as binding and a delivery service. Book launches and talks run through the year, as do film screenings and other cultural events, announced by a mailing list. The shop quotes writer Leyla Zuaiter on the resilience and generosity Palestinians carry from one era to the next, with an endless supply of stories that never make it into print. It calls that the real story of the Educational Bookshop. Titles on the front table range from Palestinian food to the history of Jerusalem's holy sites.
Asunción
Paraguayan family bookseller that began in 1971 when Pablo Burian started selling books from a kiosk by Plaza Uruguaya. It now operates 12 branches across Paraguay and Panama, organised Paraguay's first book fair in 1980 and established its own publishing house in 1982.
Best for Books
Seattle (Capitol Hill, 1521 10th Ave)
Elliott Bay Book Company opened in Pioneer Square in 1973 and now fills a landmark Capitol Hill space with cedar shelving and deep stock. A long-running author-reading series accompanies its staff picks.
Best for Independent bookstore browsing, staff picks and author events
Old Town Eureka
Eureka Books sells new books alongside used and rare editions in Old Town Eureka. Its shop on Second Street has traded since 1987, with a catalogue that also includes collectible books and prints or maps. Browse the online subjects before visiting if you are searching for a particular field or an older edition.
Best for New and collectible books in Old Town Eureka
Downtown Aspen (E Main St)
Set in a historic Victorian house with a bistro upstairs, Explore has sold curated books and hosted author events since 1975. It has long been part of Aspen's cultural life.
Best for Curated books and literary events
District 1
Nguyen Hue Bookstore at 40 Nguyen Hue Street in Ho Chi Minh City was established in 1976 as the office of the state book distribution enterprise and became a bookstore in the early 1980s. It remains the long-standing symbol of the FAHASA chain. Books and stationery fill the floors along with cultural products, and the store runs as one of FAHASA's smart bookstores with automatic checkout. Sai Gon Bookstore at 60-62 Le Loi Street is nearby.
Best for Vietnamese and imported books
Fahasa began on August 6, 1976 as Ho Chi Minh City's state-run book distribution company, set up under the Department of Culture and Information shortly after reunification to get publications from the north into circulation in the south. The 1980s Doi Moi reforms nearly broke the state bookstore sector: private distributors and cheaply produced 'instant books' undercut it so badly that some state shops rented out floor space or sold unrelated goods just to keep operating. Fahasa's turnaround began in the mid-1990s, when it adopted a self-selection retail format — letting customers browse shelves directly rather than requesting titles from a clerk — and began importing English-language titles from publishers including Oxford and Cambridge. Its Nguyễn Huệ store in District 1, renovated during that period, became the model location for the new format. The company was equitized in 2006, converting from a fully state-owned unit into a joint-stock company, and has since grown into Vietnam's largest bookstore network — around 140 stores across 25 provinces as of 2025, alongside stationery, toys and an online storefront.
Khan Market, New Delhi
Faqir Chand opened this Khan Market bookshop in 1951; it is now run by his great-grandson Abhinav Bamhi, the fourth generation behind the counter.
Best for Multigeneration independent bookselling since 1951.
New Orleans / United States
Founded in 1988 in the New Orleans French Quarter, Faulkner House Books occupies a Pirate's Alley building once home to William Faulkner and specializes in fine literature and rare editions. The intimate shop is open daily and buys and sells rare, signed and out-of-print books.
Best for Bookstore, rare books, fine literature
Florence / Online
Founded by publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who released Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in 1957 ahead of any other country; the bookshop chain opened its first store in Pisa that same year.
Best for Italian books and music floors.
The Feltrinelli name traces to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who established his publishing house, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, in Milan at the end of 1954 as an explicitly antifascist imprint. In late 1956, an Italian journalist brought him the manuscript of Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, smuggled out of the Soviet Union; Feltrinelli published it in 1957, publishing the novel in 1957 ahead of editions in both the United States and France, and the book became an international bestseller. The same year, Feltrinelli opened his first bookshop in Pisa, the beginning of what grew into Italy's largest bookstore chain, still operating under his name today. He also published Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard. Feltrinelli died in 1972 under still-disputed circumstances involving an explosion near a Milan pylon. The bookshop chain that carries his name today spans locations across Italy, including this store, and continues the general-interest bookselling model he founded alongside the original publishing house.
Paris / Online
France's culture-and-tech institution since 1954 — books, music, and electronics with the famous adhérent card.
Best for Books, tech, and French cultural gifting.
Krakowskie Przedmieście 7, Warsaw, Poland / Warsaw / Poland
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.
Newtown
Sydney's Newtown bookshop since 1967 — 25,000+ titles spanning history, politics, rare out-of-print, and Australiana.
Best for Dense second-hand books and specialist subjects
Gould's Book Arcade was established in 1967 as a literary hub serving Sydney University and Newtown's intellectually engaged community. The shop moved to its current location at 536 King Street, Newtown in late 2018 (opposite Alice Street, near the New Theatre). It is a local, family-run bookshop and member of the Australian Booksellers Association (ABA). Gould's specializes in out-of-print books, publishers' remainders from the last 40 years, and second-hand books, with Australian history, politics, and Australiana as core specialties. The shop stocks over 25,000 books, mostly non-fiction but including literary fiction, medical journals, New Age self-help, biographies, and rare pamphlets. Established over 50 years ago, Gould's remains a Newtown institution.
Richmond
Green Apple Books is an independent San Francisco bookstore founded in 1967 by Richard Savoy on Clement Street. It has since grown into three sister stores, still majority book-focused despite selling records and gifts.
Best for Independent books on Clement Street since 1967
Green Apple Books began in 1967, when 25-year-old Richard Savoy — an Army veteran with a radio-technician job at United Airlines but no bookselling experience — took out a credit union loan and leased a storefront in a pre-1906 building on Clement Street, in San Francisco's Richmond District. He stocked it with used books, comics, and National Geographic back issues, and the shop grew from there: doubling in width over the years, adding a mezzanine and a second floor, and in 1996 acquiring its neighbor of twenty years, Revolver Records, which added new and used music until that annex closed in 2021.
Savoy sold the business gradually starting in 1999 to three longtime employees — Kevin Hunsanger, Kevin Ryan, and Pete Mulvihill — a buyout structured to run over a decade so he could mentor the new owners while spreading the cost of the inventory. Hunsanger sold his shares in 2018; Ryan and Mulvihill still run the store. Despite the vinyl, magazines, and gift items on the shelves, more than 85% of Green Apple's sales are still books.
The original Clement Street shop has since been joined by two sister stores under the same ownership: Books on the Park on 9th Avenue, and Browser Books on Fillmore Street — all three hosting regular author events and school and community fundraisers.
Nahhass Building, GF, Jalloul Street 77, El-Horge 57, Kaskas, Beirut, Lebanon / Beirut / Lebanon
Hussein Halabi opened a grocery on Jalloul Street, Kaskas, in 1958; son Abdullah turned it into a bookshop after the civil war; granddaughter Lana relaunched the independent shop in 2016.
Best for An independent family bookshop relaunched by its third generation.
New Haven / United States
Connecticut's full-line independent art-supply store since 1947, Hull's on Chapel Street in New Haven stocks fine-art, printmaking, drawing and model-building materials plus custom on-site framing. It offers in-store shopping, local delivery and a direct online store.
Best for Art supply store, framing, stationery
Terézváros, Budapest
An independent bookshop specializing in Hungarian and translated literature, criticism, and cultural publications. Established 1950.
Best for Hungarian and translated literature, criticism, and cultural publications since 1950
160 E Broadway, Eugene, Oregon
Run by the same couple who opened it in 1975, this Broadway shop hand-selects books with real depth in art, architecture, photography, cookery, and antiquarian titles. The stock is curated rather than comprehensive, favoring quality over volume.
Best for Hand-picked art and antiquarian books
Downtown, Detroit
Operating since 1965 and housed in a former glove factory at 901 W. Lafayette Blvd since 1983, the main store shelves more than a million used and rare books across four floors with no in-store computers. Aisles are organized by hand, and a rare-book room upstairs holds first editions and antiquarian finds.
Best for Used and rare books by the million
Munich
An independent children’s book, toy and craft-supply shop focused on durable and sustainable products. A Schwabing institution operating since 1956.
Best for Durable, sustainable children's books, toys, and craft supplies since 1956
Kunst und Spiel was founded by Michael Peter, who began not with a shop but with an exhibition space on the third floor of his own apartment building on Georgenstrasse in Munich's Schwabing district. His guiding principle was selective: toys and materials chosen according to pedagogical and ecological criteria drawn from Waldorf education, at a time when mass-produced plastic toys imported from the United States were rapidly displacing wooden and natural-material toys across the German market. The apartment exhibition drew enthusiastic support from people connected to the Waldorf School movement, the Anthroposophical Society, and the Christian Community, and on the strength of that response Peter opened a small ground-floor shop two years later, in September 1956, at Leopoldstrasse 48 -- the address the store still occupies. That continuity makes Kunst und Spiel one of Schwabing's longer-running independent retailers, predating the district's transformation into one of Munich's best-known shopping and nightlife quarters. The shop has held to its founding premise across seven decades: durable, ecologically considered children's books, toys, and craft materials, sold from the same Leopoldstrasse address it moved into shortly after opening, at a moment when that emphasis on natural materials ran directly against, rather than with, the prevailing toy-industry trend.
Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, France
La Galerne has traded as an independent general bookshop on Rue Victor Hugo since 1982, now holding around 70,000 titles across 1,300 square metres with a staff of specialist booksellers. It hosts roughly a hundred author signings and literary events a year and runs an on-site café.
Best for Independent bookshop with author events and a wide general catalogue
Sabana Grande, Caracas
La Gran Pulpería del Libro Venezolano is a bookstore in Caracas founded in 1981 by a historian from Trujillo state named Rafael.
Best for Venezuelan bookstore founded in 1981
8 Place du Parlement, 33000 Bordeaux, France / Bordeaux / France
Independent bookshop opened October 1979 by Henri Martin and Danielle Depierre; on place du Parlement since 1996 (ALCA directory; Sud Ouest archive feature).
Best for Independent books and literary browsing on place du Parlement.
Nordend, Frankfurt
A neighbourhood bookshop in the Nordend trading since 1978, known for a literary and political range and hand-sold recommendations. It hosts readings and orders titles for regulars.
Best for Literary and political books
Wazemmes
Le Bateau Livre has run an independent bookshop in the Wazemmes district since 1988, filling roughly 200 square meters that include a dedicated 100-square-meter children's section. The shop mixes literature, comics, and practical titles with in-store author events and staff reading recommendations.
Best for Independent bookshop with a strong children's and literature selection
Church Street, Inverness, Scotland
Leakey's Bookshop has been family-owned and run in Inverness since 1979, and is billed as Scotland's largest secondhand bookshop, dealing in used and antiquarian books, maps and prints. It occupies a former church on Church Street, with a wood-burning stove at the center of the reading floor.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books, maps, prints
Downtown
Worker-owned anarchist collective bookstore at Seattle's Pike Place Market, operating since 1973 with no bosses or managers; stocks 10,000+ new and used radical, anti-authoritarian and independent titles.
Best for Radical books, poetry and movement history
Left Bank Books has operated as a worker-owned collective at Seattle's Pike Place Market since 1973, when a group split off from the University District's Red and Black Books to start their own store. It has no bosses or managers; decisions are made collectively at bi-monthly meetings run by consensus. For much of the 1980s and 1990s the collective also ran two related projects: AKA Books, a used bookstore in the University District, and Left Bank Distribution, a mail-order operation supplying radical books, zines and magazines. The current Pike Street store carries more than 10,000 new and used titles across nearly 70 sections, specializing in anarchist, anti-authoritarian, independent and small-press publishing.
Jackson, Mississippi
Lemuria Books has run as an independent bookshop in Jackson since founder John Evans opened it in 1975, building a reputation around Southern literature, signed first editions, and author events. The shop now occupies its longtime Banner Hall space and remains tied to Jackson's literary community, including ties to the Eudora Welty House.
Best for Signed first editions and Southern literature
Lemuria Books is an independent bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi, opened by John Evans in 1975 in a converted apartment in The Quarter on Lakeland Drive. Two years later it moved to Highland Village along the I-55 North frontage road, where it stayed for eleven years. In 1988 it crossed the interstate into Banner Hall, where it remains. The shop specialises in signed first editions, and its First Edition Club has run for more than 25 years. New hardbacks and paperbacks fill the main rooms and a children's section called OZ has its own space. Genres run from gardening to Zen and from history to music. The store's focus is literary fiction, with an emphasis on Southern writers. Half a century of signings has built relationships with authors, above all Jackson native Eudora Welty. Willie Morris, Barry Hannah, Ellen Gilchrist and Jim Harrison have read here. So have Richard Ford, Larry Brown, John Grisham, Greg Iles, Jesmyn Ward and Angie Thomas. Evans describes small business as a matter of adding value and taking part in the community. That means bringing in writers the staff love and supporting the writers Mississippi already has. Lemuria marked its 50th birthday on April 11, 2026, an anniversary reported by SuperTalk Mississippi, which called it one of the state's first independent bookstores.
Boulevard Pasteur, Tangier
A bookstore and publishing house operating since 1949, based in Tangier. It offers bilingual service in French and Arabic.
Best for Books since 1949
Gran Via, Barcelona / Online
Barcelona's temple of travel literature — maps, guides, anthropology and every geography a shelf can hold, curated since 1979. Travelers plan whole journeys standing in its aisles on the Gran Via.
Best for The great travel bookshop of Europe
Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo
Librería La Trinitaria is a bookstore specialized in selling books by Dominican authors. It was founded on November 22, 1968.
Best for Books by dominican authors
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.
Miguel Ángel de Quevedo 121, Chimalistac, Álvaro Obregón, 01050 Ciudad de México / Mexico City / Mexico
Librerías Gandhi Mauricio Achar traces the Gandhi bookshop to June 1971 on Miguel Ángel de Quevedo. Production is associated with Mexico, while the range centers on independent books, magazines and paper goods.
Best for Books from a shop founded in June 1971 on Miguel Ángel de Quevedo.
Leblon
Rio bookstore opened 1979 by Dalva Gasparian on Rua Dias Ferreira in Leblon, a year after her Argumento launched in São Paulo. Known for stocking books banned under Brazil's military dictatorship; still family-run with an attached café.
Best for Brazilian literature and Leblon book browsing
Livraria Argumento was founded in São Paulo in 1978 by Dalva Gasparian, who started the bookstore partly because of the difficulty her husband, the businessman and publisher Fernando Gasparian, faced distributing books from the family's own publishing house, Paz e Terra, under Brazil's military dictatorship. The following year, in 1979, she opened a Rio de Janeiro branch, choosing Rua Dias Ferreira in Leblon, near her own home, for a small shop of just over 60 square meters.
During the years of heaviest censorship under the dictatorship (1964-1985), Argumento became known as one of the few bookstores in Rio still carrying titles considered subversive or banned, drawing students, journalists, writers and academics who could find little else, and turning the shop into an informal meeting point for a generation of Brazilian intellectuals.
In 1993 the store expanded into a new space on the same street, adding CDs and DVDs to its stock and opening an attached café, Café Severino, which remains part of the shop today. The bookstore later gained wider national recognition after appearing as a filming location for the telenovela Laços de Família (2000-2001). Dalva Gasparian ran Argumento until her death in 2017, after which her children took over: Marcus in financial management, Eduardo running the café, and Laura handling book acquisitions.
6 Talaat Harb Square, Downtown, Cairo, Egypt / Cairo / Egypt
Landmark Talaat Harb Square bookshop; Middle East Eye dates the family newspaper kiosk to 1951 and the landmark store to 1958; house published Sartre/Camus and later banned titles after 1967.
Best for Books and publishing from a Talaat Harb Square family shop dating to 1958.
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
Jumeirah 1, Dubai
A family-run Dubai bookseller carrying books, educational toys, stationery, arts-and-crafts supplies, gifts, and school materials. The company began trading in 1975, and its official history describes Jumeirah as its spiritual home.
Best for Family-run Dubai bookseller carrying books, educational toys, stationery, arts-and-crafts supplies, gifts
Downtown Asheville, NC
Founded in 1982, Malaprop's is an independent bookstore and cafe in downtown Asheville known for its literary events and curated staff picks. It champions regional and diverse authors.
Best for Independent bookstore browsing; Author events and readings; Regional and diverse voices
Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe has traded in downtown Asheville, North Carolina since 1982. Emoke B'Racz opened it without business loans in a 2,000 square foot space on Haywood Street. B'Racz came to the United States from Hungary at fifteen, her father having left as a political exile in 1956. She spent nine years working at a Waldenbooks in Connecticut before moving to Asheville. She took the name from malapropism, the comic misuse of a word, and stocked shelves of international literature and poetry while paying staff wages with health insurance. Downtown Asheville in the 1980s had boarded-up storefronts and little foot traffic, and cheap rent went into inventory. After fifteen years the store moved three doors down into a historic building that had been an Elks club, with community members helping carry the stock. It now stands at 55 Haywood Street. In 2000 Publishers Weekly named Malaprop's Bookseller of the Year and the city gave it a Seal of the City recognition. Gretchen Horn, on staff since 2001 as barista and later financial manager, became majority owner in January 2019. The shop carries books for adults and children as well as young adults, along with gifts. The cafe serves pastries from local bakeries and locally roasted coffee. Hand-lettered signage and event posters line the walls, and the store makes room for emerging regional writers. Our State magazine profiled B'Racz in 2011 and Blue Ridge Public Radio in 2019.
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
West Patel Nagar, New Delhi
Left-wing bookstore and cafe in Shadipur, west Delhi, opened in 2012 by LeftWord Books (founded 1999); shares its space with Studio Safdar, the Jana Natya Manch performance venue named for playwright Safdar Hashmi, killed in 1989. Sells progressive titles near cost.
Best for Left-leaning books and a cultural space at an independent bookstore.
May Day Bookstore and Cafe was founded in 2012 by LeftWord Books, the publishing arm of Naya Rasta Publishers, which was itself established in 1999 by a group of leftist intellectuals including Prabhat Patnaik, Aijaz Ahmad, Prakash Karat and N. Ram. The store, located in the working-class Shadipur area of west Delhi, takes its name from International Workers' Day. It shares its premises with Studio Safdar, a performance space run by Jana Natya Manch, the street-theatre troupe co-founded by Safdar Hashmi - a communist playwright and director who was fatally attacked while performing a play in Ghaziabad in January 1989.
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
Barcelona / Spain / Online
Run by the Fundació Joan Miró, this online shop sells reproductions, catalogues, and objects drawn directly from the artist's work, including pochoir prints and homeware printed with Miró motifs such as L'or de l'azur and Mai 1968. Its catalogue mixes serious scholarship, like exhibition catalogues for the Miró-Picasso and Paul Klee shows, with playful items such as a Mironins activity book for children.
Best for Museum-shop, art-prints, books, design-objects
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
1F, No. 14, Aly. 14, Ln. 283, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Rd., Taipei 106019, Taiwan / Taipei / Taiwan
Openbook: founded 1976 by Wei Dewen as Southern Material Center; Taiwan / Hakka / Indigenous / historical-map research. CTS News (26 Apr 2018): 40 years of Taiwan-history academic publishing and a Gongguan-alley walk-in scholars visit.
Best for Independent books and paper goods.
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
516 NW 12th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209, United States / Portland / United States
Founded 1989 by Ron and Jennifer Rich; 1998 they opened the Pearl District retail space with an urban paper mill and letterpress shop behind the counter. Stationery Trends (2019) independently: retail opened 1998 in the Pearl with a view into the print shop and mill.
Best for Paper, letterpress printing and an urban mill in the Pearl District.
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
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
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.
1743 Buchanan Street, San Francisco, CA 94115, United States / San Francisco / United States
Nobuo Mihara co-founded Paper Tree in 1968; the Japantown origami shop continues.
Best for Origami from a Japantown shop founded in 1968.
Surulere
Patabah Books has sold books, stationery, and gifts from Lagos since 1987. Its Surulere shop sits inside the Adeniran Ogunsanya Shopping Mall, open Monday through Saturday.
Best for Books, stationery and gifts in Lagos
304 Alaskan Way S, Seattle, WA 98104 / Seattle / United States
Peter Miller opened the architecture-and-design bookshop in 1980; returned to Pioneer Square in 2017; ~8,000 titles.
Best for Architecture and design books from a Pioneer Square shop founded in 1980.
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
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
Taipei / Online
Sanmin has anchored Taiwanese bookselling and publishing since 1953 — floors of Chinese-language scholarship, literature and its own imprints. The serious reader's Taipei.
Best for Taiwan’s scholarly bookstore house
Downtown Jerusalem
An independent English-language secondhand bookshop carrying used and rare books across fiction, history, religion, politics, and other subjects. Shai and Judy Robkin established the shop in 1981; its former café closed in 2002 while the bookstore continued.
Best for Secondhand and rare English-language books spanning fiction, history, religion
56 Surrey Street, Harfield Village, Cape Town 7708, South Africa / Cape Town / South Africa
Official site (visited 2026-08-25) still trades out-of-print Africana and sport books from Harfield Village and prints '1986–2026 / Yes, 40 years of Select Books'; founder member of SABDA. AntiquarianAuctions.com seller page: established on Long Street in 1986; relocated to Harfield Village in 2018; still issues Africana catalogues.
Best for Independent books and paper goods.
Hyde Park, Chicago
Founded 1961 in a Hyde Park basement, the Seminary Co-op became the scholarly bookstore — front tables that read like a syllabus of everything. Now a not-for-profit owned by its purpose.
Best for The best academic bookstore in America
Hyde Park
Founded in 1961 as a member-owned cooperative by University of Chicago students, this Hyde Park institution runs two shops, the scholarly Seminary Co-op and the general-interest 57th Street Books, and reorganized as a not-for-profit devoted to bookselling as a cultural act. Its shelves run deep in philosophy, history, and university-press titles rarely stocked elsewhere.
Best for Scholarly and academic books
37 Rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Paris
The most English-language bookstore in the world — the original was a gathering place for the Lost Generation. The current version on the Left Bank continues the tradition. Readings, workshops. Established 1951.
Best for English-language books, readings and Left Bank literary history
Innere Stadt, Vienna
An independent English-language bookshop selling literature, poetry, plays, history, art, academic books, and children’s books. It has sold exclusively English-language books at its Vienna shop since 1982.
Best for Independent English-language bookshop selling literature, poetry, plays, history, art, academic books
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
Ermita, Manila
Solidaridad Bookshop was opened in Manila in 1965 by writer F. Sionil José and his wife Tessie. The Padre Faura bookshop became associated with Philippine and Southeast Asian writing, alongside the couple’s publishing work. In June 2025, the family announced that the business was being offered for sale, so that report does not establish a completed change of ownership.
Best for Philippine literature and literary history
Midtown, Detroit
Retired Detroit Public Schools teacher Janet Webster Jones has sold books since 1989, opening a storefront in 2002 and moving to the Auburn Building at 4240 Cass Ave in 2013. The shop specializes in nonfiction spanning history and culture, health and wellness, spirituality and books by and about women.
Best for Nonfiction and books by and about women
Aoyama, Tokyo
Landmark design and cultural center with gallery spaces, a design shop, café, and restaurant. The attached Spiral Market carries curated homeware, stationery, and accessories. A hub for Tokyo's design. Established 1985.
Best for Landmark design and cultural center with gallery spaces, a design shop, café
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.
B1, No. 9, Ln. 333, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Rd., Da’an Dist., Taipei City 106, Taiwan / Taipei / Taiwan
Official about (visited 2026): publisher 1982, walk-in 1984; Chen Longhao; 2026 is year 44. Veins of Taipei (8 Dec 2025): Gongguan basement humanities/social-science independent; same alley address. Liberty Times (18 Jan 2026): 43-year independent; 羅斯福路三段333巷9號B1.
Best for Independent books and paper goods.
Multiple Locations
Independent bookstore chain with multiple Denver locations, a Colorado institution since 1971.
Best for Multiple Denver locations of this Colorado bookstore institution since 1971
Spui
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.
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.
Old City, Philadelphia
Used bookstore opened 1975 on South Street, Philadelphia; moved to 7 N 2nd Street in Old City in 2004. About 130,000 secondhand books plus a second-floor record room, stocked mostly from customer trade-ins.
Best for Long-running used books at this local shop
The Book Trader opened in 1975 on South Street in Philadelphia and spent nearly three decades at the corner of 5th and South before relocating in 2004 to 7 North 2nd Street, in the city's Old City neighborhood, where it remains today. The shop is a roughly 5,000-square-foot space of floor-to-ceiling used books - more than 130,000 titles across fiction and nonfiction, including rare volumes - plus a second-floor room devoted to records. Its stock comes primarily from books traded in or donated by customers rather than wholesale purchase. It is counted among Philadelphia's oldest and largest used bookstores and is open daily except Thanksgiving and Christmas.
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
Main Market, 26, Block 13, Lodi Colony, New Delhi 110003, India / Delhi / India
Time Out Delhi (8 Oct 2025): reincarnation of K.D. Singh's 1971 Jor Bagh shop, moved to Lodhi Colony after the 2023 close; curated independent-press and South Asian stock. Vogue India: Sonal Narain and Mahika Chaturvedi still running the Lodhi Colony Market crimson-door walk-in.
Best for Independent books and paper goods.
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
Ottawa / Canada
The Papery is a stationery shop in Ottawa's Glebe since 1986, curating greeting cards, journals, Traveler's notebooks, fountain pens, inks and Japanese papers. Its website showcases the range and online ordering is briefly paused for a refresh while the shop sells its full selection in store.
Best for Stationery, paper, fountain pens, notebooks
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.
469 Rue Milton, Montreal, QC H2X 1W3 / Montreal / Canada
Adrian King-Edwards and Lucille Friesen opened the Milton Street shop in 1975; The Main (updated 2026-05-06) still lists 469 Rue Milton and the 1975 start.
Best for A Milton Street shop opened by Adrian King-Edwards and Lucille Friesen in 1975.
Universitetsgata 12, 0164 Oslo, Norway / Oslo / Norway
Founded 1973; Culture Trip (and Universitas) treat it as the independent alternative to Norway's chain bookstores, with what Culture Trip calls probably Norway's best-assorted cartoon section.
Best for An independent alternative to Norway's chain bookstores, founded in 1973.
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
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.
804 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94133, United States / San Francisco / United States
Founded 1974 by architect Bill Stout; one of San Francisco's essential design bookstores. AIA California: launched 1974 with Steven Holl; ~70,000-volume catalogue; Eames Institute acquired shop and publishers after Stout's 2022 retirement.
Best for Architecture and design books from a San Francisco shop founded in 1974.
Andersonville
Opened in 1979 by Ann Christophersen and Linda Bubon, this Andersonville shop grew into one of the country's largest feminist bookstores and has hosted authors from Gloria Steinem to Alison Bechdel. It stocks feminist, LGBTQ+, and children's titles alongside a long-running program of readings and events.
Best for Feminist and LGBTQ+ literature
Provincetown Ma / United States
Lesbian-owned and operated since 1976, Womencrafts is an intersectional feminist book and gift shop at 376 Commercial Street in Provincetown that doubles as a hub for local activism and community events. The store sells books, original artwork, and gifts both in person and through its online shop.
Best for Books, Feminist Bookstore, Gifts
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Open since 1978 and billed as Canada's oldest children's bookstore, Woozles fills its Halifax shop with children's books, toys and games. It hosts author events and story times.
Best for Children's books and toys
Woozles opened on Birmingham Street in downtown Halifax on October 14, 1978, founded by Ann Connor Brimer with Brian and Liz Crocker at a time when the city had no bookstore for children. Brian and Liz bought the building, a rambling old house painted bright yellow with a green door, and Liz was expecting their first child. The founders wanted a community place as much as a store, somewhere newcomers might ask where to find a daycare. Children's books share the shop with toys and games, and a comfy old chair in the corner invites reading on the spot. The shop calls itself Canada's oldest children's bookstore. Staff have stayed for decades. Original manager Trudy Carey retired in 2009 after 31 years, and Lisa Doucet then became co-manager with Liz Crocker. Past staff include author Hadley Dyer and illustrator Eric Orchard. The shop started a Battle of the Books for young readers in 1986, has run writing competitions, and in 2019 published books by two young writers to mark its 40th anniversary. Quill & Quire profiled the store at forty in 2018. In October 2021 Woozles left the yellow building off Spring Garden Road after 43 years, citing the age of the house and access for strollers, and moved with its old chair to a new building on Shirley Street in the West End, a move reported by CBC News.
Maxvorstadt
Munich independent English-language bookshop in the university quarter since 1985 — 10,000 titles and a reading cafe.
Best for English-language books in Munich's university quarter
Words' Worth opened in 1985 as an independent English-language bookshop in Munich's Maxvorstadt district, near the Neue Pinakothek and at the heart of the university quarter. Located at Schelling Strasse 3 within the humanities building of Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU), it is accessible via U-Bahn lines 3 or 6 (Universität stop). The shop maintains approximately 10,000 titles arranged across fiction and non-fiction sections. The fiction section emphasizes contemporary and classic literature from the UK, USA, and other English-speaking countries with equal weight. The non-fiction collection focuses on literary history, music, philosophy, biographies, and related subjects. Words' Worth features an integrated café serving a variety of beverages and light snacks, creating an ideal space for leisurely browsing and reading. The bookshop regularly hosts literary readings and other literary events, fostering a community of English-language readers and writers in Munich.
Marrakech / Morocco
The YSL Bookshop sits at the end of the exhibition route inside the Musee Yves Saint Laurent on Rue Yves Saint Laurent in Marrakech, its design echoing Isabelle Hebey's 1966 Saint Laurent Rive Gauche boutique. It sells books on Yves Saint Laurent, fashion, and Morocco, along with LOVE-themed posters and postcards and reissued "Loulou de la Falaise" jewelry, payable by credit card only.
Best for Bookshop, fashion books, jewelry
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