Tag Archives: Travel

Book Fix Lisbon – Bookshop Bivar

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Where to find books in English in Lisbon?

No. 1 – Bookshop Bivar in Estefânia. All-English secondhand books. Browsing recommended!

Tucked away on a hill in a residential neighbourhood with winding narrow streets, I only found it because I was lost, but it’s worth the hike. A few bookshelves, a table, a counter and a big, inviting couch – it doesn’t take a lot of fancy trimmings to open a bookstore. The books themselves lend a merry atmosphere with their colourful spines on the white shelves. A few potted plants and someone friendly to help the customers with their queries about books for school, for beach-reading or to satisfy their book cravings, and you’re away.

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Book Fix Dublin – Chapters

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img_20161121_153249Where to find good books in Dublin?

No.3 – Chapters on Parnell Street. A goldmine for hardcover books, and Ireland’s largest independent bookstore.

I used to think of Chapters as a sort of bargain bookstore. The prices are shown on the front of the books with large, red-and-white stickers, and often they are “special prices” and actual bargains. This makes a big difference on  hardcover books. I have no great ambition to own my fiction in hardcover, in fact, I prefer paperbacks, as they are lightweight and fit better into my handbags. But food and cookery books often come only in hardcover, and Chapters was instrumental in helping me build up my collection of recipe and reference books on food and wine. For the same reason, anybody interested in coffee table books on Art and Architecture should not miss visiting this store.  Continue reading →

Book Fix Dublin – Hodges Figgis

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img_20161120_152432 Where to find good books in Dublin?

No.2 – Hodges Figgis. The name sounds like a Dickens character, the shopfront looks exactly how you would picture Dublin’s oldest bookstore. Huge windows full of books curve towards the door like a bell jar. Their frames and the door are dark green, like the leather inserts on a library table.

But the shop is not resting on its long and illustrious pedigree (which includes being mentioned in Ulysses, no less).  From humanities, business and sciences on the top floor to the sweeping selection of classic and modern literature, Hodges Figgis is eminently knowledgeable without being snobbish.  Continue reading →

Book Fix Dublin – The Secret Book and Record Store

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img_20161118_141610Where to find good books in Dublin?

No.1 – The Secret Book and Record Store. A bookworms’ lair unfazed by fashions.

The Secret Book and Record Store is not all that secretly located in the city centre of Dublin. Around the corner from busy Grafton Street, amidst cafés and shops, a large yellow sign adorns the entrance. The corridor burrows away into the old building. At the end of it, boxes and tables and shelves full of books fill a low room almost to the ceiling.

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Berlin Book Fix – No.3: Saint George’s New and Secondhand English Bookshop

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img_20161020_143607.jpg Where to find books in English in Berlin?

No. 3 – Saint George’s New and Secondhand English Bookshop in Prenzlauer Berg. Well-stocked with interesting titles. They know what they are doing.

You enter through the fiction section. Plenty of good things here. The nonfiction section – starting by the cash register – is ample and organised into many themes. Genre literature and children’s books are in the very back. There are a few comfy chairs around – leather chesterfield ones, the type I would like to have in my own library, should I ever have the room for one. #classyreadingnook Continue reading →

Berlin Book Fix – No.2: Dussmann’s English Bookshop

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img_20161013_170224.jpgWhere to find books in English in Berlin?

No.2 – Dussmann’s English Bookshop: Two floors of well-selected fiction and non-fiction.

Fair warning: You’ll not only find here what you’re looking for, but also what you hadn’t been looking for. Look for the recommendations on the central table in the downstairs fiction section, then head upstairs to nonfiction and the comfy window seats.

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Understanding cheese – A visit to a Parmiggiano-Reggiano workshop

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The taste of cheese curd changed my life.

I had been well-trained in the art of composing a cheese board: combine fresh with aged cheeses, cow milk with goat and sheep, soft textures with firm, subtle aromas with pungent. Add wine. Achieve satisfaction. I was even getting rather proficient in remembering the curriculum of particular cheeses: this one from high mountain ranges, covered in luscious pastures, that one from craggy hills where sheep roam freely nibbling on wild herbs. But I hadn’t yet quite understood cheese.  Continue reading →

Udaipur works.

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Udaipur, the busy city

Udaipur builds, Udaipur cuts marble, Udaipur welds. Udaipur roasts chickpeas and fries sweets, Udaipur sells vegetables and weaves baskets. Udaipur serves dinner and massages feet. Udaipur hosts weddings and directs traffic. Udaipur drives minibuses and motorcycles. Udaipur gathers firewood and fetches water. Udaipur studies. Udaipur works. Continue reading →

Bombay wears sandals.

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Mr. Mody Steel kept me company though I felt he was mocking me with his “good luck”.

Her taxis are black with yellow roofs, and everybody honks their horn constantly. That’s pretty much all I could tell you after the first three days in India. One day of that I indeed spent listening to car horns, and watching the ceiling fan spin slowly in a grey-blue room, dozing on and off and trying to ignore my aching stomach…

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