Bookshops: A Cultural History

Why do bookshops matter? How do they filter our ideas and literature? In this inventive and highlyentertaining extended essay, Jorge Carrion takes his reader on a journey around the world, via itsbookshops. His travels take him to Shakespeare & Co in Paris, Wells in Winchester, Green Apple Books inSan Francisco, Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier, the Strand Book Store in New York and provokeencounters with thinkers, poets, dreamers, revolutionaries and readers. Bookshops is the travelogue of alucid and curious observer, filled with anecdotes and stories from the universe of writing, publishing andselling books. A bookshop in Carrion's eyes never just a place for material transaction; it is a meeting placefor people and their ideas, a setting for world changing encounters, a space that can transform lives. Writtenin the midst of a worldwide recession, Bookshops examines the role of these spaces in today'sever shifting climate of globalisation, vanishing high streets, e-readers and Amazon. But far from taking apessimistic view of the future of the physical bookshop, Carrion makes a compelling case for hope,underlining the importance of these places and the magic that can happen there. A vital manifesto for thefuture of the traditional bookshop, and a delight for all who love them. Translated from the Spanish byPeter Bush