Many readers will know that buying books is a separate hobby from reading books, even if one usually leads to the other. As someone who’s been buying books recreationally for the past almost 20 years, a lot of things have changed. Remember when we all used to love buying from BookDepository, only to find out it was actually owned by Amazon, and then when Amazon shut it down? Fun times.
So this is a guide to the places where I (an European, more specifically Portuguese person) buy my books lately.
Physical bookstores
As someone who is (as we all are) chronically online, over the past many years I’ve managed to build a ridiculously long wishlist. If you follow me on Goodreads, you can see it’s over 2500 books. Will I ever get to read them all? No. Will I hate some? Definitely.
And yet, despite having around 2700 books on a list that I want to read at some point, and that will be growing forever, my favourite way of buying books is going to a phyiscal bookshop and browsing and finding titles I’d never heard of. Here are my favourites:
- INDIE, Not a Bookshop. Currently my favourite (independent and otherwise) bookstore in Portugal and the one I visit the most. It’s in Cascais, they have a very varied array of titles (I also find books I’d never heard of when I go there and a lot of them seem fantastic) in both Portuguese and English, and they sell some fun things too, like small board games or socks. I love the colour of their blue/green bookshelves too. I also love Déjà Lu which is right across the same plaza - all their profit goes to local Down’s Syndrome associations and more often than not I find some out of print gems I’d been looking for.
- Good Company Books. The only thing missing from INDIE is a café. Good Company Books has a small but well curated catalogue, is very central and you can have a great coffee after (or before - whatever you prefer) you buy some new books. They also support book clubs and other projects and you can find them here on Substack.
- Letras Corsarias. I have a lot of favourite bookstores in a lot of different cities around Europe. The reason I’m including Letras Corsarias specifically is because I do in fact go to Salamanca every year, and whereas there’s around four bookstores I love among the several that Salamanca has to offer, Letras Corsarias is the one we make sure to go to before siesta closes everything down in order to spend the maximum amount of time possible there. I always spend hundreds of € there in books I’d either been interested in or had never heard of. If you’re ever in Salamanca, don’t miss it.
There’s a few independent bookstores in Lisbon I want to get to know but haven’t gotten around to yet: Gondwana, Inquieta… There’s also some I visited and did not consider to be note worthy. Let me know your favourites in the Lisbon area.
Online options
Now, as someone who reads in several languages - it’s not always easy to find books in French or Spanish in Portugal. There is a French bookshop in Lisbon, but no Spanish one that I’ve heard of? And the selection at FNAC et al is usually not extensive. I do buy from WOOK (and I have an affiliate link with them - I’m not a hypocrite), but delivery times for books in FR/ES are often very long and sometimes they are not able to procure the books I’m looking for.
So where can you buy books other than Amazon (isn’t that the point anyway)?
- Almedina. This one feels like a bit of a cheat as these are Portuguese books and they should be easy to find anywhere else, but! Almedina online is the first place I turn to when looking for books that are out of stock and out of print elsewhere. They usually have them and I bought a bunch of TRavesso books in October just to give an example.
- Kennys. Kennys should be everyone’s favourite independent online option for books in English. They’re Irish (so no VAT charges), they’re independent, they have a great catalogue, their customer service is great. They charge 2€/book on shipping but honestly they usually sell books cheaper than other options or at a discount. If you’re in Europe, check Kennys!
- Walt’s Comic Shop. The one time I don’t buy at Kennys is when I buy graphic novels and manga at Walt’s Comic Shop. This is probably the best option in Europe, as they have a nice catalogue, a lot of very specific titles, and pack books with great care. Their customer service is also great. Shipping is free above 150 EUR which is steep - but you can always order together with someone else or make bigger, less frequent orders, I guess?
- La Puerta de Tannhauser. I first met them via their physical bookstores in Plasencia and Caceres. When they understood I was Portuguese and just visiting, they told me they ship to Portugal - for free if order is above 50 EUR (not to make you buy more, but because less shipping = more sustainable), which is about three books, as Spain (like Portugal) doesn’t have a big paperback culture. They don’t ship worldwide, but ship to a lot of places in Europe, and the service is also super quick. If you have the opportunity to visit their physical locations, don’t miss out!
- Lireka. The best online option for books in French, if you ask me. They are priced a little bit above the usual, cover price for French books (which is normally rather low if you read paperbacks), but they ship worldwide at no cost, as they don’t charge anything for shipping (order minimum is 20 EUR) so it balances out. I have a ridiculous wishlist of over 300 books on their website.
- La Kube. Now this one is a bit different! La Kube is a French subscription box service that doesn’t believe in “one size fits all” when it comes to readers - so you fill in a questionaire with what you want to read, which you can change every month (mine is, since March 2023, francophone books with easy enough language that I can improve my French skills). You can opt to know the book beforehand or not; you can fill in your “library” so they don’t send you books by authors you already own to avoid repeats; the box always brings tea and some nice stationary and useful things. I wrote about it in Portuguese once but I should do a new version here on Substack!
- Agapea. I was once asked if I knew of any online bookstore for books in Spanish that would not ask for a kidney for shipping costs. Agapea’s website looks old-fashioned, but last time I looked, shipping costs were under 3 EUR (regardless of order amount), they are super quick to ship and their customer service is incredibly friendly. I think they ship worldwide.
Directly from publishers
I won’t lie: a lot of books I buy directly from publishing houses. I feel a bit bad as I can’t support bookshops this way but it is often the best way to get deals and, especially, not so recent/back catalogue titles.
- Feira do Livro de Lisboa and other book events like Amadora BD. Of course. Unlike a lot of other book fairs, the Lisbon book fair is not aimed at foreign publishers, it caters to local readers. Portuguese law makes it so that books cannot be more than 10-20% off for the first two years after their publication; for some this means that the book fair is blah but it is very rare for me to buy or read anything too recent so I rarely ever buy books that are not priced 40% or more off. I buy from all types of publishers in there, but I especially love getting to know smaller publishing houses and actually physically looking at the books and finding all the hidden gems.
- Virago Books. This is, hands down, my favourite publisher. They will sometimes run 50% off promotions in a selection of books (all of them for their 50th anniversary). Import taxes do apply but it can be worth it. I have never read a Virago Book that disappointed me.
In hindsight, this post should have been in Portuguese?