queermelady:The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World (according to Flavorwire)http://flavorwire
queermelady:The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World (according to Flavorwire)http://flavorwire.com/254434/the-20-most-beautiful-bookstores-in-the-world#1Don’t Let Amazon Take Over Our Bookstores!It may be extremely easy to get books at your door with one click. What concerns me is how we’ve transferred the experience of entering a bookstore, creating community, admiring the architectural diversity, meeting new bookworms and writers, for a solitary, mediocre effort of clicking “buy” on amazon. Bookstores are sort of lovers for me. I fall in love with them. I hate many of those that I no longer visit. I create relationships with their walls, with their shelves, with their most comfortable floral chairs: we fight over books, over art, over my or their smells. Every time I enter a bookstore I get this rush of belonging. Every time I go on Amazon I feel, well, nothing. “With Amazon slowly taking over the publishing world and bookstores closing left and right, things can sometimes seem a little grim for the brick and mortar booksellers of the world. After all, why would anyone leave the comfort of their couch to buy a book when with just a click of a button, they could have it delivered to their door? Well, here’s why: bookstores so beautiful they’re worth getting out of the house (or the country) to visit whether you need a new hardcover or not. We can’t overestimate the importance of bookstores — they’re community centers, places to browse and discover, and monuments to literature all at once — so we’ve put together a list of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, from Belgium to Japan to Slovakia.” -- source link