I was impressed by the number of bookstores in Buenos Aires, especially in the Recoleta neighborhood. Most of them are independent. (I didn’t see any Borders or Barnes & Noble stores.) Argentina is an important book publisher in Latin America.
Roaming through books is an activity that offers quiet and solace in a bustling city like Buenos Aires and people walk through aisles constantly.
“El Ateneo” is the bookstore that impressed me the most. Located in an old and elegant theater —whose original name was “Grand Splendid”— on Santa Fé Avenue, the building has been adapted for its new purpose. The foyer is magnificent and ornate; the seating area (where most of the bookshelves are located) has been cleared and made level with the stage, which has been turned into a coffee shop. When you enter the theater, you see a bluish stage filled with patrons chatting and skimming books. Patrons read in the balconies, and the mezzanine has more books. The painted high ceiling is magnificent and has been refurbished to its original glory.
1 comment:
Well, I don't know what you mean by independent, I'm not sure if they are local or part of international companies, but there are at least three big book store chains: Tematika (El Ateneo and Yenny): http://www.tematika.com/, cúspide: http://www.cuspide.com/ and the smaller Librerías Santa Fe: http://www.lsf.com.ar/. (But yeah, as far as I know there aren't any branches of the big US book stores)
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