What Taylor Books is known for
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.
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.
Best for — Books, coffee and a craft gallery in Charleston
Where next
- Filigranes — Global / Online
- The Book Gallery — Jerusalem
- The Bookstore & Get Lit Wine Bar — United States
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