Brick-and-mortar bookshops worldwide are caught in the shifting sands of global economics — the digital onslaught has taken a heavy toll on several stores and chains, more so in the West than in India, and many have bled money till forced into closure.
The times may be changing, but certain bookstores hold their ground as they are so much more than just that — some have been battlegrounds for freedom of speech, while others represent a sense of counter-culture and creativity.
My travels have been that much more gratifying because I had the good fortune of visiting several well-curated bookstores, the best of which are independent cultural establishments.
Shakespeare and Company
I waited patiently for my turn to enter Shakespeare and Company, the fabled bookstore perched on the banks of the Seine, Paris, and overlooked by the Notre Dame. Such is its fame after being featured in films such as Before Sunset and Midnight in Paris that it’s a common sight to see excited tourists clicking photographs there, clogging up an already chaotic place. Cocooned with books, the store does not have enough space for a stock room — instead the books are piled from floor to ceiling in a higgledy-piggledy manner, significantly adding to its charm.
This is no ordinary bookshop — it borrows its name from the original Shakespeare and Company, which was run by American Sylvia Beach. She hobnobbed with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Eliot, published Ulysses when nobody had heard of James Joyce, sold (then) banned books such as D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover , and her in-house magazine featured Samuel Beckett and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others.
This centre for modernism could not survive the German occupation of France during WWII, and only its name found a second lease of life when American George Whitman opened his bookshop, originally named Le Mistral. Whitman carried forward Beach’s trailblazing spirit, as his bookstore too threw its doors open to writers of all fortunes, and quickly became a face of Paris’ bohemian spirit.
City Lights Bookstore
I had come to San Francisco — the beautiful city by the bay — with only a vague idea about hippies and the ‘flower-power’ movement, and was completely in the dark about the Beat generation. I was simply looking around North Beach when I chanced upon City Lights, and went in, not knowing I had stepped into the epicentre of progressive thought in the United States.
Co-founded by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights was the first all-paperback bookstore in the country, and since the 1956 publication of Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl , and its obscenity trial in 1957, the writer, the publisher and the bookshop were brought to nationwide attention.
City Lights remains a fertile environment for thinkers and writers, and regularly hosts readings and runs events that draw in a diverse crowd. I certainly emerged from this temple of learning a little more aware of the disruptive power of words, and promised to return again.
Daunt Books
London is a treasure trove for book lovers and offers a wide variety to choose from — be it second-hand bookstores or ones specialising in particular subjects such as science fiction or homosexuality. My favourite is the Marylebone High Street branch of Daunt Books, simply because it is the most beautiful bookshop I have ever seen. It is an original Edwardian bookshop with long oak galleries, skylights and William Morris prints, and focuses on travel and literary books.
Despite its considerable size, it is easy to get lost for an entire day in one of its little nooks, perusing an eclectic selection of books from around the world. On my last visit, I picked up a battered old copy of an Englishman’s travels across Russia in the 50s, when St Petersburg was still called Leningrad, as well as an account of the hedonism and jaw-dropping riches of the Rajas of India.
Lit by natural light, this bookshop retains the charm and vitality of an older time. I spent several hours in its womb, soaking up the air of wonder, discovery and erudition. A day very well spent in a magnificent city.
