Max
“There is no friend as loyal as a book,” Hemingway once said—which might explain why libraries and bookstores always feel like sacred ground for the chronically overstimulated.
Sure, you can buy a book online in 30 seconds or pirate a PDF like a gremlin, but there’s still nothing like walking into a space built entirely around stories. These places aren’t just shelves and silence—they’re weird, beautiful, sometimes accidentally haunted corners of the world where books live (and occasionally dominate the architecture).
Here are some of the most unique libraries and bookstores people have stumbled across—equal parts cozy, chaotic, and magical.
1. Corner Bookstore Selling Vintage Books In Buxton, A Market Town In High Peak, Derbyshire, England
2. Livraria Lello, Porto, Portugal
3. Used (Books) Bookstore In Edinburgh, Scotland
4. The Book Of Kells, Dublin, Ireland
5. Netherlands Bookstore
6. Perhaps One Of The Most Beautiful Bookstores In Europe, Cărturești Carusel, In Bucharest
7. Antlantis Books, Oia, Santorini, Greece
8. Snowy Book Stand In Madrid, Spain
9. Starfield Suwon Library, Suwon, South Korea
10. Haunted Bookshop, Cambridge, United Kingdom
11. Boston Public Library, Boston, United States
12. Bath Old Books, United Kingdom
13. Peabody Institute Library, United States
14. Istanbul University Library, Turkey
15. Cook&book, Brussels, Belgium
16. Trento, Italy
17. Library Of Congress, Washington, D.c., United States
18. Waterstones, Bradford, England
19. Atticos, Budapest, Hungary
20. Itap In A Bookstore, Osaka, Japan
21. The Norwegian Book Town
22. Shakespeare & Co Books, Paris, France
23. Jondi Shapour Library, Tehran, Iran
24. “Word On The Water” The Floating Bookshop On The Regent’s Canal, London, United Kingdom
25. Halle Saint-Pierre, Paris, France
26. Coziest Bookstore I’ve Ever Seen
27. The New York Public Library, New York, United States
28. Library Of Alexandria, Egypt
29. The Old Cincinnati Library Before Being Demolished, United States
30. The King’s Reference Library, Denmark
31. New Bookstore In Chengdu, China
32. Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
33. National Library Of The Czech Republic, Prague, Czechia
34. Stift Admont Bibliothek And Museum, Admont, Austria
35. Juristische Bibliothek, Munich, Germany
36. Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland
37. Chongqing Bookstore, China
38. Biblioteca Vasconcelos, Mexico City, Mexico
