Thursday 3 November 2016

Bookshop Love in the US so far!

I recently visited The Strand Bookshop in New York and while I was there I was thinking about all of the great bookshops I have visited in the last few months since moving to the USA. I am lucky that I have been able to travel around quite a bit and of course when I travel to somewhere new, I need to take in a bookshop in the area!



The Strand
Oh my goodness I could spend the rest of my life in this bookstore! The atmosphere is just buzzing with a love of books. They advertise that they have 18 miles of books but they have 18 miles of a wide selection of reasonably priced books and include things like tables of books under $5 or $10 books to make you think. They have a great graphic novel selection and a massive section of books about writing too. They have some amazing merchandise with cool slogans on socks, tote bags, pencil cases, pins and notebooks and they even have a TFIOS bench-just such a cool place!. Come to New York just to see this shop!





Tattered Cover
My Denver saviour! I love this bookshop mini chain because the staff are so friendly and the bookshops themselves are just lovely. They host lots of events with fabulous authors and I love to get involved in a bookshop like that. What I also love is that they have a downtown branch and a branch a little closer to the city centre but they also have a branch in a shopping mall area so I can go there and park and take as long as I want browsing and chatting to the lovely booksellers!



City Lights
A San Francisco institution! This bookshop wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be, there was a fab selection of books about the local area and about local interests which I thought was really great. They also had a lovely children's section in the basement complete with little chairs for the children to sit and enjoy the books. I really liked their coffee table books and the fact that they had a big selection of books on feminism and LGBTQ+ issues! I would have liked a little more space between the shelves and I don't think you'd get a wheelchair or a pram in there but that's really the only negative I have!



The Booksmith
This was a great bookshop I found in San Francisco in Haight Ashbury. It had a great selection of diverse books as well as a lovely display of recent releases. My favourite thing about this shop, aside from the awesome music it was playing was the section on feminism and feminist books. It was so refreshing to see it displayed in a prominent position in the shop and not tucked away in a back corner as if it needed to be hidden. if you're in San Fran then I definitely recommend a visit there!



Barnes and Noble
Ok, so I know that this is a chain bookstore but I do love a Barnes and Noble and I recently found one in a mall in New York that was so quiet and peaceful and just a lovely place to read with a coffee and a cupcake. I do have a Barnes and Noble card and I do feel an instant sense of calm when I step through the doors! I love the fact that most branches have a coffee shop or a Starbucks and I recently visited a branch in New Jersey that had a massive 'sale' section at the back where they had regular sale books and then this whole selection of second hand books and you could take your books there for trade in. If you're ever in the area I totally recommend a visit to that Paramus store.




So those are the bookshops I've loved so far. I also did a video about this so do give that a watch (also see my post with my YouTube confession if this is news to you!) and also let me know in the comments if you have other bookstore I should check out in Colorado or anywhere else for that matter-will travel for books!

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