Independent Bookstore Day is a one-day event held for independent bookstores, primarily in the United States, to recognize and celebrate the uniqueness and importance of independent bookstores. It has been held every year on the last Saturday of April since 2013.
On this occasion, I will show you the independent bookstores I have visited so far:
Bestsellers Bookshop
The Bestsellers bookstore opened in Budapest in September 1992. For nine years from 1995, it was a bookstore specializing in the social sciences field, and then in 2004, the original shop was expanded, and since then, customers have been offered a huge selection of classic and contemporary books. Their motto: „Through books to knowledge and dreams”.
Massolit Budapest – Bookstore & Café
The Massolit Budapest bookstore was founded in 2010 by David Miller, modeled after the Massolit in Krakow. In 2012, Massolit in Budapest became independent from the one in Krakow, and in addition to the cafe and bookstore, it also opened a gallery and a garden space. Since then, in addition to books in English, you can find delicious coffee and cookies, you can see exhibitions of young domestic and foreign artists, or you can just sit in the garden or in the shop and relax a little.
Vroman’s Bookstore
Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore was founded in 1894 by Adam Clark Vroman, who moved to Pasadena in the late 1800s to help his wife Esther’s health. Unfortunately, Esther died two years later, and the heartbroken Mr. Vroman sold his beloved book collection to increase his capital and open a bookstore. When he died in 1916, he left the bookshop to the old employees, one of whom was the great-grandfather of the current owner.
Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company is an English-language bookstore in the heart of Paris, on the banks of the Seine, opposite Notre-Dame. Since its opening in 1951, it has been the main meeting place for English writers and readers. The bookstore was founded by the American George Whitman at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, where all French roads begin (Kilometer Zero). When the store first opened, it was called Le Mistral. George changed it to its current name in April 1964 – the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth – in honor of a bookseller he admired, Sylvia Beach, who founded the original Shakespeare and Company in 1919. Her shop at 12 rue de l’Odéon was a gathering place for the great émigré writers of the time – Joyce, Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Pound – and the greatest French writers.
