Beautiful Cities for Bookshops, Libraries and Literary Cafés
There are bookshops you visit because you need a book, and there are bookshops that quietly become the reason for the trip. The second kind might occupy an old theatre, hide behind a courtyard or sit among dozens of secondhand dealers. Sometimes the attraction is the collection. Sometimes it is the room itself. And occasionally, if we are being honest, everybody is there for the staircase. A good bookish city offers more than one photogenic bookshelf. It gives you somewhere to browse after the photographs are taken, somewhere to drink coffee without joining a long queue, and enough literary life that books do not feel like decorative props. These cities approach that idea in completely different ways. Porto, Portugal Photo by Peter Justinger on Unsplash Livraria Lello is undeniably beautiful. The carved wood, stained glass and curving staircase give the impression that the building was designed by someone who considered straight lines terribly dull. It is also one o...
