Posts Tagged ‘Books’
Berlin’s Best Bookshops
Paul Sullivan rounds up some of the city's best English (and some German) language bookstores... Another Country Named as one of the top ten bookshops in the world by Lonely Planet, Kreuzberg’s Another Country is one of Berlin’s longest-running literary/intellectual salons for the English-speaking crowd. A good chunk of its 20,000-odd books are for loan, not sale (bring a book back and the purchase price is refunded, minus €1.50), while about ten percent of stock functions as a [...]
On se left you see se Siegessäule
Brian Melican finds erudite humour in a book by German comedian and former tour guide Tilman Birr... A few weeks back, I came across a review of a book called On se left you see se Siegessäule: Erlebnisse eines Stadtbilderkärers whose title intrigued me enough to procure it. As an Englishman who has learnt German, just the moniker on its own was enough to bring a wry smile to my face: read in German, the title gives you the typical accent of a German trying (and failing) to master that [...]
Ethical Shopping in Berlin
Natalie Holmes rounds up a selection of Berlin shops with a local, sustainable, eco and fair trade twist... DeDeRon - photo by Natalie Holmes Vintage & second hand DeDeRon, as the name suggests, specialises in curiosities from the former DDR, as well as vintage items from way-back-when and newer but equally interesting pieces. Charming turn-of-the-century Christmas tree decorations compete for space with vintage east and west versions of flavoured soda powder – apparently de [...]
St George’s English Bookshop
Vanessa Remoquillo profiles one of Berlin's longest serving English-language bookstores... It's a Thursday afternoon, and customers are slowly trickling in and out of St George's bookstore in Prenzlauer Berg. A man and his young daughter idly browse the shop's impressive selection of books; the daughter begins to wander, lost in a collection of fairy tales. Two women stand at the front, discussing the merits of old books they want to trade for store credit. I'm sitting with Paul [...]
Another Country
Marian Ryan profiles one of Berlin's most characterful bookshops... In November 2010, one of the world’s best-known travel-guide brands, Lonely Planet, named Berlin’s Another Country among the top ten bookshops in the world. The quirky, thirteen-year-old Kreuzberg institution took its place at number six, alongside legends like Paris’s adored Shakespeare & Company and San Francisco’s iconic City Lights. Not a few jaws dropped among the Berlin literati. “None of the other [...]
Do You Read Me?!
Carlijn Potma browses Berlin's most comprehensive magazine store... Auguststrasse - East Berlin’s so called ‘art mile’ - doesn't only host a widerange of art galleries. It’s also a great place to hunt for rare books and magazines thanks to No. 28, which houses Do You Read Me?!, a well-known store offering hundreds of interesting magazines and reading material. Graphic designer Mark Kiessling and professional bookseller Jessica Reitz founded the store two and a half years [...]
Dialogue Berlin
Wyndham Wallace talks to Sharmaine Lovegrove of Dialogue Books… In 2009, former Londoner Sharmaine Lovegrove set up Dialogue in the back of a Prenzlauer Berg café, seeking to provide not only a source of contemporary English language books – including translations – but also to provide a focus for the city’s English speaking, book loving community. Though other stores existed that sold English language works – from Dussmans to St Georges – Lovegrove’s brief was more precise: [...]
Cafe Hilde
Book readings, hearty Irish breakfasts and home-made cakes... My first encounter with Café Hilde was on a dark and wet winter night back in January. The streets outside glistened with snow and rain rapped at the windows like a lunatic insect as I sipped wine with friends and listened in hushed silence to a voice from the past. The voice belonged to Orson Welles – to a 1938 radio broadcast of him reading from Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness to be precise. Welles' voice, wrapped [...]
Anna Blume
Where flowers, cakes and poetry mingle harmoniously... Berliners love their bounteous breakfasts as much as their afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen - and any establishment that can offer both is justly venerated. So it is with Anna Blume, a Prenzlauer Berg institution that manages to combine a florist, bakery and cafe with impressive fluidity. Interior designer Thomas Seiffert has made good use of the fact the venue was named after a 1919 Kurt Schwitters poem: lines from the surrealist [...]
Marga Schoeller Bookshop
A charming Charlottenburg bookshop with a great selection of English titles and a warm, old school vibe... Not many bookstores can say they've been in operation for over eight decades, especially in a city as historically turbulent as Berlin - but Marga Schoeller's can. Opened in 1929 by the eponymous Frau Schoeller, the shop originally specialised in European literature and theatre works. Schoeller managed to stay open during the National Socialist years despite refusing to sell Nazi [...]
