Many Canberrans were heartbroken this year when Borders closed. But late last year I entered the magical realm of the Beyond Q bookshop. CJ and I descended the stairs into a giant basement, greeted before we entered by some live jazz and the smell of coffee. There was a sign in the front entrance asking if anyone had seen the parrot that usually resides inside the shop.
Various antiques were scattered here and there among the shelves – rumour has it the shelves would stretch over a kilometre if placed end to end.
I was quite lost, and perfectly content. And then I found the young adult section and – oh, *swoon*. So many of my friends were there, waiting to be bought.
It was a good day.
Where is your favourite bookshop, and why do you love it so?
Hmmm, may have to pay them a visit!
Haven’t got much of an excuse really, seeing as they’re just up the road from work 🙂
Got a Kindle for Christmas, so I am now delving into Amazon’s plethora of free ebooks. (You can also get a Kindle app for your PC/iPad/iPhone/Android) Some of them are good, but I have to admit, that genuine paper is just nicer 🙂 For books that I think I will want to keep, ebooks just seem too ephemeral. And I have seen some publishers insist on charging the same for an ebook as a real book….. really, there’s no competition, an ebook is portable, but a real book is universal – anybody can use them, you can sell them, lend them, and they have presence on your book shelf. 🙂
Stu: So far, I much prefer paper books too – especially when ebooks can’t be lent to friends like ordinary books can.
I can’t believe you didn’t know about this place! Apparently the resturant upstairs is very good too 😉
Ann: With the friends I have, I’d heard the tales.
Anywhere books can be bought is good, but my favourite is probably “Dirt Cheap Books”. It’s a healthy 20-30minute walk from my house and they have an awesomely wide selection of books of all different types, and there was NOTHING more than $4.99 😀
I’m pretty sure they went into liquidation and are shutting down though 🙁
Bonnee: Mmm. . . cheap books. To be honest, Beyond Q wasn’t all that cheap.