Sophia Raphaeline (photo by Ana Dinescu)

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 bookshops can quite believe it,” says its British owner, Sophia Raphaeline.

Naysayers fret that Another Country’s selection of literary fiction can be spotty, that the shop carries no new books, that the place is just strange. It’s true that Another Country is messy and unpredictable. The shop is appealing—with its black-and-white-tiled façade, dazzling red door, brightly painted plasterwork, colorful shelves, and comfy armchairs—but it does tend toward the slovenly with its full ashtrays and used wineglasses, mud tracked across the floor tiles.

And on Friday nights, when a crowd of regulars holds court in the back room, arguments break out and get passionate. It’s hardly a tidy, curated experience. Like other shops on the Lonely Planet list, though, Another Country is much more than a place to buy books.

Sophia is duly proud of the citation. You won’t see any promotional sign in the window, though, no mention in advertisements or marketing paraphernalia. You won’t find the news on the shop’s website either. Sophia demurs at the idea of truly publicizing the news; that would be, she says, “selling out.” Even so, she’ll tell just about everyone who comes in the door and is not above a good boast.

“Once or twice a day,” she says, “we get people saying, ‘What a great shop!’ We get a lot of Americans doing the Grand Tour, who come here after Paris and say, ‘Oh! This is what we wished Shakespeare and Company was like.’ The shop seems to fit into some archetypal image they have.”

Yet Sophia is something of an accidental bookseller. When the shop began, it was largely to find a use and a home for a personal collection of about 13,000 books. Wary of running a business unsupported, she approached an established secondhand shop specialising in English books about going into partnership. She told the bookseller that about a third of what she had consisted of science fiction and fantasy titles. “And I had wait about thirty seconds for the laughter to fully go away,” she says, “before the answer came: ‘Oh, we only do culture here.’”

She rankles at the memory. As you’d expect of a bookseller, she’s vastly well read, but Sophia abhors any sniff of cultural or literary snobbery. The principle behind her shop is very much one of inclusion rather than exclusion.

So much about the shop defies convention. For one thing, 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 reference library, available only to read in-shop. And unlike most bookshops in Berlin, Another Country is permitted to open Sundays, due to its designation under Reisebedarf, or traveller’s aid. Add to all that its considerable other life as a social club, and its curious owner herself.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

The shop’s tall, dark-haired transgender owner, Sophia, dresses mainly in long, dark skirts and cardigan sweaters and describes herself as having the hormonal and emotional tenor of a fourteen-year-old girl – as a person in the throes of a second puberty.

Her story, unlike the more familiar trans narratives, of early-post-adolescent transition or sustained efforts to pass in one’s natal gender followed by transition in middle age, is uncommon. Free of gender-role struggles, Alan Raphaeline lived contentedly as a heterosexual male well into his sixth decade.

But one morning in 2008, at fifty-five years old, Alan woke to find he was no longer a man. Later, that is what he would conclude had happened. I sit on a wooden cube in front of the shop desk while Sophia tells me her story.

“Imagine you’ve done a tab of mescaline,” she says, “and the feeling never goes away.”

Around the middle of 2008, having experienced a serious health scare and come out the other side, Alan went through a sudden, wrenching shift. “I woke up one morning with the strong sense that something was missing,” Sophia says now. “When I hit the streets, everything changed in the way I seemed to see and feel people around me.”

Then-Alan found he was overwhelmed by incoming sense information. He forced his mind back to the night, the days before. Had he taken something? No, he had to admit he hadn’t used a hallucinogenic substance in fifteen years. So what was happening? He began a journey to find out. First the tumble awake to strangeness, followed by consultations with neurologists and endocrinologists, psychological exploration (he was in fact a certified psychotherapist himself).

Neurologists could find no pathology or evidence of stroke; endocrinologists found elevated estrogen levels and lowered testosterone. Sophia cites the hormone upset as likely tied to a long-term medication regimen. She also considers the possibility of disturbed hormone cascade in utero brought on by DES, which her mother took when she was pregnant with Alan.

Late in 2008, after a few months of struggle and investigation, came the realization of the thing that had been missing since the morning when Alan woke up disoriented. It was gender. Alan’s ways of seeing shapes and colors were utterly altered, his ways of knowing things, the character of his anger. He began to conclude that his cognition had been completely reshaped, with “female” neural structures activated and male patterns switched off. He began to find himself thinking thoughts that began, “When I was a guy . . .”

The decision came quickly. Sophia says she could not go back, likening the shift to being freed from a cramped, dark space. Alan became Sophia; she grew out her hair and began electrolysis, undertook hormone therapy, began wearing skirts and brassieres. After a trip to London for the granting of revised identity documents, gender female, Sophia Raphaeline returned to her Kreuzberg shop and held an intimate funeral ceremony for Alan, burning the old documents and putting him to rest.

Photo by Ana Dinescu

Visitors to the shop often assume that its name comes from the James Baldwin novel of Bohemian decadence in 1960s Greenwich Village. It’s a not a bad guess; Sophia (as Alan) came of age during the high tide of the counterculture, and bears its imprint still. But she says the name properly comes from the original source, Act IV of Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta: “Thou hast committed— / Fornication: But that was in another country. / And besides, the wench is dead.”

The layers of subtext are delicious, but on the surface it’s just a good name for an ex-pat-owned bookshop visited by Anglophones who may pine now and then for the territory they’ve left behind; who’d like to use the simple currency of their native speech in a land run on seven-syllable-long, tongue-boggling compounds.

The main impetus in founding the shop, besides creating a purpose for then-Alan’s collection, was to make a place “where people could have the relief of speaking English. The books,” Sophia adds, “were almost beside the point.” Thirteen years on, she is proud of Another Country’s role as community hub, and enjoys helping newcomers to Berlin find their bearings, dispensing tips and advice.

The flagship community event is the weekly dinner and salon. On Friday nights around nine, a buffet-style meal is served among the sci-fi cellar stacks (at 5 euros each, exclusive of drinks). Sophia cooks most of the meal herself in her adjacent flat, catering for meat eaters and vegetarians alike, with dishes like marinated chicken, baked fish, Tex-Mex frittata, sautéed potatoes, and stuffed tomatoes. Twenty or so hungry book lovers tuck in downstairs while on the main floor a corps of regulars shoot the breeze over beer and wine. People linger for hours, the somewhat younger, fresher downstairs crowd playing Scrabble and sharing their stories, talking about books, and the ground-floor regulars settling in the orange glow of the back room among the crime and history titles like it’s their local boîte till the small hours of the morning.

Regular quiz nights and occasional film screenings are also on offer, and Another Country has at times hosted musical events and has had its own writer-in-residence, American Darius James, who took up office in the front window with his typewriter and tapped out stories. A contest is currently on for the best short stories featuring the shop in some way; winning stories will appear in an anthology. In-shop book groups have flourished, as have writing groups, with a new one expected to take shape after the holidays. The activities are organized largely by regular volunteers who help out around the shop or by community members, bringing things full circle.

Sophia’s post as bookseller brings many people to her desk, where she enjoys talking about books and life. She’s grateful for the support and friendship she’s received from the shop community as she makes her way through transition, though she admits, “A few people look at me and they don’t think I’m trans at all. They just see a guy in a dress.”

But she says she’s happy to be in trans-friendly Kreuzberg, in a city as receptive to difference as Berlin, with its vibrant queer, bi, and trans scenes, a place where eccentricities are, if not everywhere accepted and cherished, certainly tolerated. After keeping to her nest in the shop for a few years surveying the internal landscape, Sophia says she’s ready to go out more, explore the scene.

“Yeah,” she says, a laugh humming in her throat, “I want to get out there and be tolerated!”

Another Country
Riemannstr. 7
10961 Berlin
T: 030 69401160
www.anothercountry.de
Open: Tue–Fri 11 am–8 pm, Sat–Sun 12–4 pm

About The Author

Marian Ryan has worked as a book editor and is former fiction editor of At Length Mag. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Columbia, The Writer’s Chronicle, Quick Fiction and elsewhere. She lives in Prenzlauer Berg.

DeDeRon - photo by Natalie Holmes

E.M. Forster once described Christmas as a time when “vulgarity reigns”.  Indeed, a century later, cynics are quick to dismiss the festive season as little more than a thinly veiled ploy to ramp up consumerism to ever-giddier heights. Still, for the optimists among us, the act of giving and spirit of goodwill — however clumsily expressed — can still be a way to celebrate the bonds between us.

Purchasing gifts from local or natural sources strengthens the local economy and plays a pivotal role in the quiet transition towards sustainable urban lifestyles. Even in this era of financial turbulence, with Berlin’s creative capital firmly in the black, an abundance of outlets provide plenty of opportunities for shoppers to give something back to the city, while earning an altruistic afterglow that could even, in the right lighting conditions, be confused for a winter suntan.

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 rigueur at the moment as a vodka mixer. A visit to this grotto will spark the imagination of even the most stumped Christmas shopper.

Furniture

A tree takes a long time to grow, but during that time it becomes a thing as strong and beautiful as only nature can create.  Clearly inspired by this spirit of longevity, Not a Wooden Spoon in Prenzlauer Berg and ShowRaum in Kreuzberg breathe new life into reclaimed wood and other materials, which are reborn as gorgeous, stylish pieces of furniture to be treasured for generations to come.

Kitchenware

Every good kitchen needs a decent set of knives. Holzapfel houses an extensive selection of imported Japanese handmade knives and unique kitchenalia. The showroom in Prenzlauer Berg oozes rustic charm and convincing originality, with a tangibly high quality of goods and an impressive list of clientele that includes master craftsmen from butchers to bookbinders. Kochtail in Mitte stocks a wider and more conventional – but no less impressive – range of kitchen products. Their Made in Berlin range features Berlin gin and vodka along with accompanying online cocktail recipes for the perfect kick start any ‘slow’ party.

Food and drink

Five Elephant cake and coffee shop have just contracted their first micro lot of naturally processed, direct trade coffee sourced from the Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza project in Brazil. The first delivery will be arriving in time for Christmas, so a detour off the beaten path to this corner of Kreuzberg is well worthwhile. Once you do get there, instant gratification awaits in the form of Philadelphia cheesecake, which Time Out recently described as ‘positively transcendental’. Buying a cookery class as a present for your nearest and dearest is surely the gift that keeps on giving.  Deli-cum-Slow Food haven Goldhahn & Sampson offer, in addition to their sumptuous selection of foodie delights, a range of evening sessions for all abilities. Alternatively, if there’s a chance such a gift will hit a nerve with your special someone, the high-end chocolate making class on 18th December includes luxurious packaging and a bow. If you want something done properly, as they say…

Eco Showroom - photo by Natalie Holmes

Spa & wellness

Why do we always make new year’s resolutions when we know they never work? Each December we fall for that tantalising illusion of newness ahead, as if that arbitrary date upon which we load so much meaning has the power to absolve our actions and strengthen our will. It takes more than a change in the calendar to shake us out of bad habits, which is why there are few better gifts to give than a break from the old routine. A massage at Shiatsu Loft in Kreuzberg, for example, provides a subtle but lingering excursion from the everyday, as Wyndham Wallace found out recently.  

For the full works, Liquidrom is a wellness centre in the city centre offering extensive thermal baths, sauna, steam rooms and spa treatments. Prices are slightly higher than other, similar places, but you can easily spend an entire day in this aquatic utopia – a perfect antidote to the post-Christmas desolation of deepest darkest winter.

Ethical miscellany

Luxus International rents space by the shelf to local designers; stepping inside is a technicolour treat. The innovative concept gives artists an opportunity for their products to reach the public, and for shoppers looking for unusual gifts the resulting diversity on offer is a dream come true. In a similar vein, Supermarché in Kreuzberg stocks Hirschkind’s organic, Fair Trade and recycled items, from kitchenware to children’s clothing, all beautifully designed and reasonably priced. PR company Sieben & Siebzig represents designers and manufacturers of sustainable products, including clothing and natural cosmetics. Their office is Mitte is ingeniously fronted by Eco Showroom, a platform for showing off their clients’ wares.  They currently have a stunning, limited-edition collection of Finnish clothing, available until the end of December.

Books

The trusty book is a still a stocking staple. Picking out your favourite books for your favourite people is reason enough to look forward to the festive season. Dialogue Books in Kreuzberg just made the best part of shopping even better, with their late-night Christmas shopping evenings. Each Thursday in December enjoy complimentary mulled wine and mince pies, along with a tasty 10 per cent discount off everything and free wrapping service. If space is an issue, trade in old books at Fair Exchange and save some cash in the process. The cavernous second hand bookshop has some great titles and, as the name would suggest, a fair policy on exchanges.

You can find more Slow-style Xmas shopping tips by reading last year’s wonderful guide, written by Berlin Reified‘s Sylee Gore…

About The Author

Natalie Holmes lives and works in Berlin. She loves learning German, birdwatching and travelling by train, in between working as a freelance travel consultant and aspiring writer. A keen environmentalist, Natalie writes about sustainability and responsible travel on her blog, The Horseshoe Nail.

Photo: Carlijn Potma

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 ago due to a lack of shops selling the well-curated, international magazines they were interested in. The duo decided to take things into their own hands, and filled the gap by opening their own specialist shop.

The raw and trendy interior is a perfect backdrop for all the literature on display. The L-shaped space is fitted with black walls and a black tile floor, but doesn’t look shady or grim.

Magazines with stylish covers are tightly arranged on black aluminium bookshelves. Some are laid out on tables made of the same raw wood as the counter or placed in wooden boxes. Due to a lack of space, every corner – every inch of the walls and floor – is used to store a multifarious array of periodicals and books.

Photo: Carlijn Potma

Large windows at the front and the back of  the shop and rows of ceiling lamps turn it into a well-lit space. If you want to take a seat and glance through one of the journals in comfort you’re welcome to use one of the several white Eames chairs placed in the corners of the shop.

The range of subjects on offer is mind-boggling – art, culture, fashion, photography, design, architecture, literature, music, theater, society, politics and business are all represented, from a multitude of perspectives.

In all, the shop provides over seven hundred different titles from more than 20 countries, from well-known periodicals like Vogue, i-D or Wallpaper to local and more obscure ones like Sang Bleu, Candy and  McSweeneys.

Photo: Carlijn Potma

In the unlikely event that you can’t find what you’re looking for, the store provides advice and research to help you compile your own personal assortment pf publications – on a regular basis or as a one-off (back issues can also be ordered).

Next to magazines, the store stocks a broad range of arty books. The wooden bookshelves – which you can find on the left hand side at the back of the shop – are charmingly chaotic but contain well-curated publications focused on design, art, literature and much more.

And inevitably, Do You Read  Me?! organises launch parties, readings and discussions as well. Check their website or sign up to their newsletter for regular updates.

Do You Read Me?!
Auguststr. 28
10117 Berlin-Mitte
Open: Mon – Sat 10 – 7:30
Map

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: to employ her well-over-a-decade of specialist experience within the trade to curate a one stop shop for all that was fresh and exciting in contemporary literature.

Sharmaine Lovegrove, founder of Dialogue Books.

From graphic novels to philosophy, Dialogue did exactly what it says on the tin: it got people talking about books, whether they were simply browsing or taking parts in events the store organised. Now Dialogue Books is going global, though Berlin remains the centre of its operation. After having to vacate the Prenzlauerberg premises, Lovegrove has overseen Dialogue’s transition from physical to virtual store, and from December 8^th, 2010, Dialogue will transform into an online store, while continuing to offer readings, screenings, a Book Club and Lovegrove’s tailored recommendation service, The Book Doctor.

On the eve of its launch, she took time out to explain her philosophy, her plans for the future, whilst also making a few book recommendations for those interested about our beloved Berlin…

How did you end up in Berlin, and what drew you to the city to begin with?

I came to Berlin in February 2009 with the aim of founding an English-language bookshop. I had been spending the previous five years visiting European capitals looking for the right city to start the bookshop. I fell in love with Berlin and there wasn’t already a bookshop specialising in new English-language titles.

Dialogue began life as an English language bookshop run out of the (currently homeless) T Rooms in Prenzlauer Berg’s Christinenstrasse. What inspired you to set it up, and who else was (and is) still involved?

I was looking for a space that was small and compact to create a boutique bookshop where one could really engage with the individual titles and the T Room location seemed to be the perfect match.

The publishing industry has changed so much since the recession that I felt the only way to not be left behind was to have the ‘pop-up-shop’ for a short time to establish the community and then move forward with an online shop and cultural portal.

We have a strong community of people that support us by coming to events and spreading the word. The core team is myself, illustrator and web manager Julian Mills and my supportive husband Thomas Lovegrove who can often be found making everything just right.

Your goals right from the start seemed to be more than simply selling books, with readings, a book club, and – more recently – film screenings. Why did you take on this extra responsibility, and what did you learn from it?

Reading is such a huge part of my world and, having been a bookseller for most of my working life it’s only natural that I see books as more than just a physical object or hobby and thus have a strong desire to share, discuss and engage way beyond exchanging cash at the till.

We started a year ago so I am learning a lot! One key thing I have learned is not to work with people whose cultural values do not resonate with our own. Our most successful collaborations are with people who really love books and understand our vision. I am looking forward to reflecting on the past year once the website is launched.

Dialogue's "Book Doctor" logo

You also offer a service called the ‘book doctor’: can you tell us a little more about this and how it works?

Book Doctor is where I prescribe individuals a reading remedy. If you are not sure of what to read next or you would like a library building service, then I make recommendations based upon your requests. This week I have been asked to write a list on Urbanism and also to add more titles to a regular customer’s Christmas book list.

It’s my favourite part of my job. I love recommending books to people on any subject. It’s challenging and really rewarding when the ‘patient’ is happy with the recommendations.

Dialogue is currently (or about to become) a virtual store thanks to the launch of your new website. Why did you decide to launch online? Do you intend to return to a physical venue as well?

I wanted to do some thing different. Experiment with my profession. So I am currently stretching myself into lots of different areas – all book related and so it seemed a natural step to go online to allow me to reach a wider audience and pursue my role as a literary consultant. I am not looking for a new shop but if the perfect 30sqm with front windows came up in a good location came up, who knows….

What can we expect from the new website? What will set you apart from other online stores or indeed other Berlin physical stores offering a selection of English language books? And are you concerned that you will lose your Berlin focus by focusing on the worldwide web?

Staying still is what concerns me, at 29; I straddle two generations – life before computers and life afterward. We have built a website that lists the finest books available in the English language but in a way that is clear, accessible and somewhere that you will hopefully want to spend time discovering new books rather than feeling ‘sold’ to.

I have looked at the cultural inspirations surrounding the books and taken elements such as place, film, idea, object, or art and connected them to relevant titles to create a cultural portal where you can browse and comment with your own book-inspired connections.

What sets us apart is experience – I have been a bookseller since I was 16 and have worked at shops such as Foyles and the London Review Bookshop; and we are the only bookshop in Berlin to exclusively sell new English language books. We are supporting writers directly by selling new books and we are more likely to experiment with new and upcoming writers, which is important to us. And by having an online bookshop then our new books are priced much lower than other new English-language titles in Berlin.

We have a great community based here so there will always be events and a Berlin focus to what Dialogue does. There’s an international conversation happening about books and we want to be part of that too, so going online allows us to have the best of both worlds.

What events do you have planned for the future, both confirmed and theoretical?

Sadegh Hadayat - currently under discussion at the Dialogue Book Club

This month we have our launch party on 8.12.10. The Book Club is currently reading Blind Owl by the tragic Iranian author Sadegh Hedayat: we’ll be discussing the book on 20.12.10

Building the website is a huge task so we will get onto event planning again after Christmas.

Who would you most like to see taking part at a Dialogue event?

As our events are in English we have such a large pool of interest and inspiration to choose from, so much work in translation. I would like to do events with Herta Müller, Gunter Grass, Julia Franck, Slavoj Žižek, Geoff Dyer, John Berger…..

What is your ideal situation in which to read?

A guilty pleasure is to spend a day in bed with books…

And finally, what are you five favourite slow and / or Berlin related books, and why should we read them?

In Praise of Slow by Carl Honoré - Anyone who wants to re-examine their priorities and engage with this cultural movement of slow should start here

Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit – A history of walking that is about time and space and consciousness of the world as much as about putting one foot in front of the other

What I Saw Reports From Berlin 1920-33 – Joseph Roth – Acclaimed Jewish-Austrian Roth takes us on a journey of Berlin, recording the violent social and political paroxysms that constantly threatened to undo the fragile democracy that was the Weimar Republic.

This Must Be The Place – Anna Winger – This wonderful Berlin novel brings two different perspectives on the city from two different people who for their own reasons have the time to explore the German capital and each other.

Berlin Blues – Sven Regener – For those who enjoy the laid back atmosphere of Berlin then the protagonist is pretty horizontal! It’s 1989 and, whenever he isn’t hanging out in the local bars, Herr Lehmann lives entirely free of responsibility in the bohemian Berlin district of Kreuzberg.

Photo courtesy of Cafe Hilde

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 atmospherically in the old recording’s hisses and crackles, merged atmospherically with the rain, holding the entire café rapt.

Hilde was new then, but the place has since maintained an impressive dedication to merging interesting cultural events with decent food, some of the friendliest service in Berlin and a great ambiance.

While located on the corner of Metzerstrasse and busy Prenzlauer Allee, it’s just far enough from the Mitte multitudes and the weekend Kollwitzplatz crowds to feel a bit sanctuary-esque.

The sizeable interior is well lit by large south- and east-facing windows (sit near the door and you can see the Friedhof der Sankt Marien und Nicolaigemeinde on the other side of the main road), and decorated with a farrago of tables and chairs, photos of multiple Hildes on the wall, and strategically placed piles of books and international reading material.

Photo courtesy of Cafe Hilde

While this may sound like many other ‘retro-chic’ Berlin hangouts, Hilde’s pristine newness, its charming interplay of light and space, erudite choice of books, considered background music (and its non-smoking policy), create a slightly more cultivated milieu – one that’s perfect for a rendezvous with a good book, an intimate chat over coffee or wine or a convivial lunch or dinner with friends (outside street seating also available).

Which brings us to the menu. The coffee’s good – two Brazilian fair-trade blends are on offer in a variety of styles – and the food, while staying within the realm of café fare, is above average.

Owner Kristina Hoppe lived in Ireland for many years and her nostalgia runs through the menu in the shape of hearty Irish breakfasts served at the weekend (a British ex-pat carnivore’s dream-come-true featuring sausages, bacon, black and white pudding, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, toast and butter – but no beans) to Barry’s Irish tea and the Guinness and Kilkenny Ale on offer.

Vegetarians are catered for with colourful meat-free breakfast platters, vegetable soups during lunch and salads and pasta dishes in the evening.

Foto von Cafe Hilde

Throughout the day you can also indulge in Hoppe’s home-made sweet treats, which range from flapjacks, brownies, apple tart and cheesecakes – and a chocolate vegan fudge so devilish it should come with a trident instead of a fork.

Evenings are equally enjoyable thanks to Hilde’s interesting range of events, from excellent book readings put on by Dialogue to film nights and more. The wine list is decent, including some organic choices; and since the summer has opted to deliquesce somewhat abruptly into winter, those cosy radio broadcasts should be starting up again soon too…

Café Hilde
Metzer Strasse 22 (Prenzlauer Berg)
10405 Berlin
Tel: 030 (0) 40 50 41 72
Open: Mon-Fri: 9-24; Sat-Sun: 10-24

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

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.

Photo: Paul Sullivan

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 masterpiece spiral elegantly outwards from a reproduction of an Alphonse Mucha mural – a summer-clad Art-Nouveau woman (Lady Dada?) sniffing coquettishly at a flower – and unfurl along the walls behind the counter.

The conceptual borders between flower shop and café blur even further the more time you spend here. Delicate odors waft through the cafe when the internal door is opened; petals and other flower parts turn up in the beverages and food (think rose-infused crepes, teas, home-made ice cream); gorgeous bouquets and arrangements punctuate the tasteful interior.

A pervasive Art Deco theme continues through the curving red leather banquets, the solid, marble-topped tables and the dark, cosy salon at the rear, all red drapes and candlelight even during the day. Oddly the place only opened in 2005 – it feels like its been here forever.

You can also sit outside on the generous patio (blankets and heat lamps during winter) and watch the Prenzlauer Bergers go about their business. If that gets boring, grab a free book from the tree library – a community bookstore cunningly inserted into a nearby tree trunk.

Anna Blume’s menu stretches to hearty lunches and vigorous dinner courses made from seasonal ingredients – but it’s as a breakfast and cake place that it reigns supreme. For Frühstück there’s the usual run of muesli, eggs, crepes…but the real highlight are the set breakfasts.

Photo: Paul Sullivan

Named after flowers and priced at around 8 euros, they’re beautifully presented and generously proportioned. Fish fans will love the Anemone (salmon, scrambled eggs, shrimps); the Med-style Oleander features salami, provolone, oyster mushrooms and marinated zucchini; the Alpenrose has Tyrolean ham and Schweinelende (pork loin).

If there are two or more in your group, plump for a platter (17.50 euros for two / 24.50 euros for four): a vibrant medley of hams, eggs, fruits and fish superbly arranged on a tiered silver tray. Such offerings are inevitably coveted, especially at weekends. Arriving between 9-10am is a good idea. Any later and you may be left languishing by the door until a table comes free.

With this in mind, try to find a seat facing away from the door unless you want half a dozen famished eyeballs boring enviously into your Latte Macchiato.

If you’re a late riser – don’t worry. Pop by later in the afternoon and succumb to the café’s cake selection – a glittering catwalk of comely crumbles, slick cheesecakes and baroque gateaux that pout and wink from behind a long glass vitrine. Once you’re done with your treat, stroll past the neighbouring florist and look in the window of the Anna Blume bakery next door. If you’re lucky you’ll witness the white-coated staff working their magic with flour, cream and light industrial machinery.

Anna Blume
Kollwitzstraße 83
Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg
Open: 8am–2am daily
Tel: 030 440 487 49

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.

Marga Schoeller Bookstore

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 literature and – even more impressively – sold books banned by the Nazis by hiding them deep in the basement.

Once the war was over Schoeller’s became the first bookshop awarded a license to sell English books, and quickly became a focal point for West Berlin’s burgeoning literary scene, attracting esteemed international writers like Beckett, Hesse, Mann, Eliot, Auden and the members of Hans Werner Richter’s famed Gruppe 47.

Originally located on Ku’damm, the shop relocated in 1974 to the
smaller, charming and perhaps more apposite Knesebeckstrasse, whose nearby
streets resonate with the names of philosophers, writers and poets (Schillerstrasse, Goethestrasse, Kantstrasse, Leibnizstrasse…).

Though Schoeller passed away in ’78, her son and colleagues have continued her good work. The shop still sells mostly German-language books, but still maintains one of the best English book selections in Berlin, located in an alcove on the left as you enter.

Marga Schoeller Bookstore

Here you’ll find a considered selection of books on poetry, theater, philosophy as well as fiction, history, biographies and plenty of tomes about Berlin and Germany. There’s also some kid’s books in English and several reading events (German and English) per year.

Best of all, staff are friendly, well informed and speak good English – in fact some of them are English. You may well overhear one of them calling a regular customer on the phone to let them know a new book has come in that they might enjoy. Far from an exercise in cynical telesales, this is the kind of old school personalised service Schoeller’s excels at. It makes online shopping feel like the sterile experience it is…

Marga Schoeller Bücherstube
Knesebeckstraße 33
10623 Berlin, Charlottenburg
Tel: 030 8 81 11 12/22
Open: Mon-Wed 9.30-19; Thu-Fri 9.30-20; Sat 9.30-18

About The Author

Paul Sullivan is a Berlin-based writer & travel photographer and the founder of Slow Travel Berlin. You can check out his personal website here and some of his photography galleries here.