The Secrets of the World's Most Beautiful Bookstores

Bookstores are thriving. Since the first edition of 'Bookstores' (Galaxia Gutenberg) was published, they have not only remained cultural havens but have also become viral objects on social media, thanks to the spectacular nature of their spaces. "Walls of books that seem infinite due to mirrors for visitors to take selfies. Almost like a theme park," says its author, Jorge Carrión. "But it's good because it makes them known."

This is one of the most notable changes in recent years, especially among the largest ones located in China, Korea, or Brazil. However, the most famous remain Shakespeare and Company in Paris, Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, and Lello in Porto.

Bookstores also reaffirm themselves as refuges against misinformation. "In these twelve years since this essay was first published, there has been a rise in fascism and our problematic relationship with information. So, unexpectedly, they have become places to seek verified and fact-checked data," Carrión states during a meeting with readers at the Celama bookstore, one of the newest and most "viral" in Spain.

A defender of children's sections "because what ensures the future is that the next generation falls in love with paper books," Carrión confesses that "because of this book, I now lack innocence. When I enter a bookstore, I have an analytical gaze, and it's hard to be surprised."

Away from the idea of a catalog or annotated list, Carrión delved into the memory of these places. "It's not an enumeration," he maintains. "It's a literary book, read like a novel. But since it features the best bookstores in the world, many people use it as a travel guide."

A Doctor of Humanities, born in Tarragona in 1976 and author of the fiction tetralogy 'The Footprints,' Carrión asserts that "I used to think they needed to modernize, but now I believe a bookstore should be classic. It should be a space without Wi-Fi, to reconnect with the physical, touch the books, and not look at the mobile."

Of those that were in the first edition, the "minority" have closed their doors, but more are opening or expanding. "We are in the renaissance of bookstores," asserts Carrión, who gathers the most beautiful, oldest, most political, most irreverent, most literary, and most everyday bookstores he has visited since 1996 across the "five continents." This essay, as stated in the epilogue, has no end.