Today I spent an hour exploring the
Architext and
Metropolis bookstores in Melbourne. They are probably both amongst my favourite bookstores, both specialising in architecture and design. It got me to thinking, what makes a good bookstore? I know a lot of people like to have armchairs and coffee and
magazines to flick through, but I am not so fussed about any of that. For me, it is the collection of the books that matters first and foremost (sections that I like to see include current affairs, politics, sociology, literature, classics, art and design, architecture, cinema, and maybe children's books).
Secondly, I like a good atmosphere. Generally, smaller is better. Hidden lofts and cellars crammed with books waiting to be discovered is good.
Thirdly, I think it is important that the staff and customers treat the books well. This is my issue with Borders - sure, it has a good range, but the books are so often dogeared and damaged. The shelves there are too narrow so books are often falling off the shelves, the customers treat them far too brutally (consistent with the "McDonalds of bookstores", put your feet up and relax sort of environment I suppose), and you get the feeling the staff could care less about the books. I think the books need to be treated like precious jewels of insight and wisdom and wonder, not as units of stock.
So, here are a few of my favourite bookstores, in addition to the two I just mentioned.
Melbourne:
1.
Brunswick Street Bookstore - it's all about the upstairs here, where design books cluster around a modernist
ottoman in a
heavenly loft space.
2.
Hill of Content - this Bourke Street institution (in the interesting part of Bourke Street, towards Parliament House) is a beautiful shop filled with books selected for the discerning reader. Seems to always be full of browsers.
3.
Readers - local chain with the best outlets being Carlton and Hawthorn (in my humble opinion). Good selection of just about everything, and a famous bargain table near the front door.
5.
Readers Feast - I love this huge cellar-like store with its semi-circular layout.
6.
Berkelouw - this
Armadale outpost of the Sydney chain has wooden floorboards and a small but carefully selected range of quality books.
7.
Conventry - a good selection of design books, and proximity to the markets and cafes makes this a good Sunday morning browsing option.
Sydney:
1.
Abbey's - great independent bookstore over two levels in an area of the city known as the "book quarter" because of all the independent bookstores around there.
2.
Berkelouw - the
Paddington store is the best, located in a sliver of a building with its own cafe and adjacent to an excellent
arthouse cinema (what more do you need for an ideal urban village environment I ask? Maybe a fruit and veg market and deli, perhaps a wine bar, but otherwise it's all you could want surely!). They also have a fantastic "
book barn" in
Berrima in the Southern Highlands - basically a barn filled with second hand and remaindered books, in a bucolic rural setting. Perfect pit stop when driving between Sydney and Canberra ;)
3.
Better Read than Dead - this
Newtown store has a fantastic quirky name and a great selection of books too.
4.
Ariel - opposite
Berkelouw in
Paddington, this store has a great design section.
5.
Kinokuniya - giant branch of the Japanese version of Borders (only far superior). If you can't find a book here you're just not trying.
Particularly good children's section.
6. The Bookstore - Sydney's venerable gay and lesbian bookstore.
Canberra
Canberrans are the most highly educated people in Australia and it takes some good bookstores to satiate that need for knowledge. My favourites are Electric Shadows, known particularly for its books on cinema and its arthouse DVD collection, Smith's Alternative Bookstore, which lives up to its name, Paperchain in Manuka, and Academic Remainders, which is not easy to find but where you will always stumble across a find.
I just have to include some overseas bookstores too:
In Köln, the Taschen bookstore is one of the most beautiful I have ever been inside, and the perfect platform for peddling their beautiful books.
In San Francisco, I loved Modern Times in the Mission District (there are a number of good independent bookstores in that part of Valencia Street - you could easily spend an afternoon there), the famous City Lights which lives up to its reputation, especially the cellar which is filled with high brown intellectual books, and Green Apple in Clement Street, which expands over two floors and is totally packed to its stripped wood rafters with books. I could easily have spent a day there. A San Francisco local wrote about this store as one of his favourite places in the newspaper while I was there, and he said that he grew up thinking all bookstores were like that and never realised just how special it was. I only wish all bookstores were like that!
