In London, you'll find the gorgeous Marylebone High Street branch of Daunt Books. Located in an Edwardian building built for this very purpose in 1910, the most intriguing thing about Daunt's is its organizational method: Most of its titles are not shelved alphabetically but by country.
If you want Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, it will be with the Russian travel guides. Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary will be with the French guides.
Daunt's is the perfect place to browse before travelling elsewhere, as it will provide the best inspiration for books to take with you. And the whole organizational method highlights a strange and potent link between bookstores and travelling: how important bookstores are to the wary traveller, how they provide an oasis for those lost in a foreign land and how the books lining the shelves can offer companionship in a place where everyone else may be a stranger.
Daunt Books in London uses a unique filing system that reminds readers of the potent link between bookstores and travelling, and the role books play both as guides and companions.
A bookstore in a foreign country offers a window into culture and place in a way that no museum or gallery can.
Take, for instance, the fairy-tale grotto of sunken books that is Libreria Acqua Alta in Venice. Acqua alta is a Venetian term that means "high water," a reference to the periods when the tide is high and the city's cobbled streets are flooded. The eccentric bookstore braces for these floods by keeping books in disused bathtubs and gondolas. Piles of damaged paperbacks form tables and are stacked with popular titles such as John Julius Norwich's A History of Venice or the newest Commissario Brunetti mystery by Donna Leon.
In the unlikely event of an emergency, there's a "fire escape" at the back that leads directly into the canal.
For a more traditional – yet grandiose – bookstore experience, visit Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal. Opened at the beginning of the 20th century, the stunning neo-Gothic building is rumoured to be a source of inspiration for J.K. Rowling's Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The celebrated author lived in Porto for a few years after she attended university, and if you look from a certain angle, the winding staircases of Livraria Lello do almost seem to move.
For a more modernist take on bookshop design, head to Pro qm in Berlin. The space was built by the famous architect of Weimar Germany, Hans Poelzig, in the 1920s, and the store builds on this history by specializing in books on design, architecture, politics, economics and other works that border the in-between.
Berlin’s Pro qm is known for hosting events on scholarly topics ranging from urban networking to modern perceptions of movement.
The minimalist design – much like a work of abstract and conceptual art – creates a space where theories and ideas can be tested out, bounced around and projected. The bookshop is known for hosting events on scholarly topics; over the past few months, talks have ranged from urban networking to perceptions of movement in modern life.
Too cerebral? Craving a little comfort, too? For a master class on the classic café-bookstore hybrid, look no further than Massolit Books and Café in Budapest.
Located in the Hungarian capital's Jewish Quarter, this quaint bookstore offers shelves of English-language titles, delicious cake and a charming garden in the back where you can read, sip your cappuccino, ponder and dream.
But if it's celebrity you're looking for, the European bookstore with the most famous author clientele has to be Shakespeare and Co. in Paris. While it's technically not the former stomping grounds of Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce – that one was closed in 1941 during the German occupation – this incarnation, opened in 1951 along the Seine and across from Notre-Dame, is run with the same bohemian spirit. Within its cluttered walls of new releases, philosophy books and poetry is a thriving community of artists and dreamers. A tradition since its inception has been to welcome "tumbleweeds" – young travellers and writers – with a place to sleep among the stacks in exchange for a few hours of work each day (alumni include actor Ethan Hawke and award-winning novelist Sebastian Barry).
While it’s technically not the former stomping grounds of Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce – that one was closed in 1941 during the German occupation – this incarnation of the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, opened in 1951 along the Seine and across from Notre-Dame, is run with the same bohemian spirit.
Inspired by the same intellectual and bohemian philosophy, a group of idealistic and naive undergraduate students followed a similar model in Santorini, Greece, in 2004.
Atlantis Books has proved to be a massive success, gaining international coverage and spawning an independent publishing arm. It's also a hit with customers on the ground – and for good reason: After browsing the shelves, visitors can sit on the upper patio and look out over the village of Oia, with its paper-white buildings and blue-domed churches, and the serene Aegean Sea.
Atlantis Books has proved to be a massive success, gaining international coverage and spawning an independent publishing arm.
Bookstores around the world are struggling against the incursion of e-books and online retail. Book publishing itself is a nervous wreck, unable to foresee what the future holds for print media, let alone the shops that provide it. Yet these wonderful centres of culture show no signs of disappearing and are, in fact, thriving. Many of them have become tourist destinations. After all, who needs to ride the London Eye when you can read about it at Daunt Books?