Bookstores

In his engaging essay, writer and book critic Jorge Carrión (born 1976) takes the reader on a journey through the bookstores of the world. Following the author, we visit Shakespeare & Co in Paris, Wells in Winchester, Green Apple Books... in San Francisco, Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier, Strand Bookstore in New York, small shops, and huge bookstore supermarkets. Carrión paints a picture of bookstores, considering this institution through the lens of space and time as a unique authentic place, a separate world, and an important cultural phenomenon. "Bookstores" is a travelogue of a lively and curious observer, filled with stories from the universe of writing, publishing, and selling books. According to Carrión, a bookstore is not so much a space for material transactions as it is a place for gatherings of people and ideas, for meetings that can change the world and lives.