My Favourite Bookshops

I love bookshops, they are my churches, and I can happily spend at hours at a time browsing every shelf, regardless of whether or not I have any intention of buying any books (spoiler alert: I always end up buying books anyway). This is a list of my top 3 favourite bookshops, just because:

1. The American Book Centre, Amsterdam

Photo from here

Ugh, be still my beating heart! This place is incredible, four beautiful floors of books, the selection is incredible and they have every genre of book you could possibly hope to find. The Netherlands doesn't have a whole lot of English language bookshops so every time I'm in Amsterdam I spend at least an hour in here (as documented in this post).

2. Waterstones, Birmingham

Photo from here

I love this bookshop. I've only been there a few times because I'm only ever in Birmingham to visit one of my lovely friends who used to live there, but every time I went to see him I would drag him in here and he would traipse around after me while I stroked all the books. The building itself is amazing (as you can see) and there's a bunch of sneaky little hidden rooms off to the side which I love to explore.

3. Selexyz Dominicanen, Maastricht

Photo from here

I had heard about this bookshop online and seen a lot of pictures of it, and I had my heart set on visiting it for a long time, but I only finally went last weekend - which you can read about here if you're so inclined. The place is obviously just incredible and it's really awe-inspiring just to wander around it. Unluckily for me there isn't a huge selection of English books, but the place itself totally makes up for it.

BONUS ROUND - A bookshop I want to visit:

1. Shakespeare and Company, Paris

Photo from here

Because duh. This one is definitely on my bucket list, just look at it. I've never been to Paris before but as soon as I do this will definitely be my first stop. Wait actually no, that's a lie because I'll be in Paris for the first time in my life at the end of the month....for an hour in the airport while I change planes. What a bummer.