Browse The World in Bookshops

A celebration of the greatest kind of shop in the world, by an award-winning cast of writers including Ali Smith, Michael Dirda, Elif Shafak and Daniel Kehlmann.

A cabinet of curiosities, a time machine, a treasure trove - we love bookshops because they possess a unique kind of magic. In Browse, Henry Hitchings asks fifteen writers from around the world to reveal their favourite bookshops, each conjuring a specific time and place. These inquisitive, enchanting pieces are a collective celebration of bookshops - for anyone who has ever fallen under their spell. Contributors include Alaa Al Aswany, Stefano Benni, Michael Dirda, Daniel Kehlmann, Andrey Kurkov, Yiyun Li, Pankaj Mishra, Dorthe Nors, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Elif Shafak, Ian Sansom, Iain Sinclair, Ali Smith, Saša Stanišic, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez.

A dazzling collection of original essays about the bookshop by fifteen bestselling international authors.

Henry Hitchings is an award-winning writer, reviewer and critic. He has written for the Guardian, London Review of Books, TLS, Financial Times and New Statesman, and is currently the Evening Standard's theatre critic. He is the author of several acclaimed books on language, literature and culture, including Dr Johnson's Dictionary, How to Really Talk About Books You Haven't Read and The Language Wars. In 2008, he was shortlisted for the title of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, and in the same year his book The Secret Life of Words won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award.

C o n t e n t s

Introduction: A Place to Pause
Henry Hitchings

Bookshop Time
Ali Smith

Something that Doesn’t Exist
Andrey Kurkov

The Pillars of Hercules
Ian Sansom

A Tale of Two Bookshops
Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Leitner and I
Saša Stanišić

All that Offers a Happy Ending Is a Fairy Tale
Yiyun Li

If You Wound a Snake…
Alaa Al Aswany

Desiderium: The Accidental Bookshop of Nairobi
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Snow Day
Michael Dirda

Dussmann: A Conversation
Daniel Kehlmann

La Palmaverde
Stefano Benni

A Bookshop in the Age of Progress
Pankaj Mishra

Intimacy
Dorthe Nors

Bohemia Road
Iain Sinclair

My Homeland Is Storyland
Elif Shafak

Writers’ Biographies

Translators’ Biographies