World’s Most Unique Bookstores
If you're an avid bookworm, there's little better than curling up with an enthralling novel in the depths of a unique bookstore. If you're an English or history teacher itching to inspire your students, be sure to plan a visit to one of these amazing bookstores on your next student trip:
1. Shakespeare and Co.
"I must go down where all the ladders start in the foul rag and bone shop of the heart." Featuring the WB Yeats quote on its website, Shakespeare & Company is a place that does more than sell books. Named after a bookstore frequented by Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce during the 1920s, the shop on Paris's Left Bank has become equally legendary. Opened in 1951 by the American George Whitman – and run by his daughter Sylvia since his death in 2011 – it became a gathering place for Beat Generation writers like Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs. From the start, Whitman allowed travelling artists and writers to lodge at the shop, which is also a lending library; the spirits of past authors haunt its crowded walls.
2. Runneymede Chapters
The Runnymede Theatre is a historic building located in Bloor West Village, an affluent west end Toronto neighbourhood. The building has operated as a vaudeville theatre, a movie theatre, a bingo hall, and a Chapters bookstore. The building is currently closed and will reopen as a Shoppers Drug Mart.
3. El Ateneo, Buenos Aires
Visitors can go from stage to page at this Argentinian icon. First built as the Teatro Grand Splendid in 1919, before becoming a cinema in 1929, El Ateneo appeals to the dramatic reader. With frescoed ceilings, ornate carvings and plush red stage curtains, it has retained its original splendour: customers can sit in the theatre boxes to browse in comfort.
4. Libreria Acqua Alta, Venice
Could this be the world's only underwater bookstore? Translating as 'high water bookshop', its canalside spot means an extra level of organisation for staff: the rubber boot-wearing owner has to move his books from the floor to bathtubs and higher shelves during regular flooding. Justine Kibler, who took this picture when she visited in November 2013, said: "Venice is flooded. People are wading along the streets in a foot or two of water and the buildings are boarded up. But the Libreria Acqua Alta is still open for business. In fact it's in its element.
5. Bart's Books, California
Bart's Books – which calls itself "the world's greatest outdoor bookstore" – was set up in 1964 by Richard Bartinsdale, who left book cases on the street to sell titles he no longer wanted. Passersby could leave money in a coffee can. Now, the store has nearly 1m books – many of which are still sold through an honour system – as well as a courtyard where browsers can play chess under the shade of an apple tree.
