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| The World's Best Bookstores - Independent Bookshops Photo: Marc PiaseckiGetty Images |
There’s a bookstore in Brooklyn called Books Are Magic, and I’ve always thought the owners, Emma Straub and Michael Fusco-Straub, couldn’t have picked a better name. Books are
magic. They can take you anywhere with anyone at any time, and the
shops that sell them embody an equally enchanting range of escapes and
adventures. I was charmed before I even entered Atlantis,
a bookstore perched above the Aegean Sea in Santorini, and I was ready
to move in when I realized there were loft beds hidden behind the
bookshelves.
Not all bookstores are that dramatic, but some are pretty iconic, so much so that everyone will ask you if you visited Shakespeare and Co. when you were in Paris, or Livraria Lello in Porto, or El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires.
Truth be told, I don’t need much advance planning
when it comes to bookstores; I just need to spot one nearby. There’s no
better place to waste time or make an impulse buy, though my favorite
visits are definitely planned.
I love to call ahead and put a hold on a forthcoming title at my local shop, Community Bookstore, and then walk the two blocks when they call to say it has arrived—which is often before the official release date...
Until I can do that again I’ll keep buying from independent bookstores, whether they’re two blocks away or hundreds of miles, like Old Town Books in Alexandria, Virginia, whose owner, Ally Kirkpatrick, isn’t sure her business will survive.
Read more...
Source: TownandCountrymag.com
