Short essays by various authors including Andrey Kurkov, Iain Sinclair, and others, about their experiences with bookshops around the world. I was particularly taken to Saša Stanišić's piece; comparing books to drug addictions. Yiyun Li, describing the part of a Chinese bookstore with "No Foreigners Allowed" having pirated copies of books behind the curtain, and a hate letter to a (Danish?) bookseller who treated the author (Dorthe Nors) with disrespect. Fun, but pointless book. ( )

An excellent collection of essays from writers all over the world, all centering on the bookshops that have most impacted their lives, shaped them, or are just plain favorites.

Writers from nearly every corner of the globe (no Aussies or Antarticans) tell their stories and of the entire collection, only one - Iam Sinclair - failed for me. While all the others wrote odes to bookshops, Sinclair seemed more content to use bookshops as a front for his diatribe against politics. His essay, his right, but in the company of the other authors in this book, it felt brash and strung-out. I found his writing florid and at times incomprehensible too. Having never read his other works, I have no idea if this is congruent with his style, or a one-off; either way, it was the only speck on an otherwise perfect collection.

Because I enjoyed the rest so thoroughly (ok, Dirda's essay was just ok) it's impossible to pick a favourite. If you feel your soul sing when you walk into a bookshop, I think this collection is well worth investigating.

Picked a few chapters that interest me so not gonna leave a ratings as I haven't actually finished the book. Came for Andrey Kurkov, stayed for Yiyun Li xD

A passion for bookstores may not be universal in the sense of everyone, but perhaps it is in the sense of everywhere. That is the idea one gets from reading “Browse: The World in Bookshops,” edited by Henry Hitchings (2016).

Hitchings asked writers from around the world to reflect on their experiences in bookstores, and the results, most of them anyway, are fascinating, often inspiring.

British novelist Ian Sansom recalls working at Foyle's Bookshop in London as a young man and spending most of his working hours hiding from customers, and presumably his bosses, and reading.

"Literature was my homeland," writes Juan Gabriel Vasquez, whose other homeland is Colombia.

Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor recalls visiting a Nairobi bookshop as a child. "We were in paradise," she writes, "because there was no (offending) school textbook in sight to destroy our illusions!"

"I would argue that under most circumstances the conversation of used book dealers or obsessive collectors is the best conversation in the world," says Michael Dirda, who writes about books for the Washington Post. In his essay he tells about using the hours before a predicted blizzard, while his wife is out of town, to search for treasures in a used bookstore.

Danish author Dorthe Nors tells of the thrill of seeing one's own book in a bookshop, although in her case the store manager, unimpressed, gets angry because Nors has moved her book to a more prominent position.

And so it goes, from Turkey to China to Ukraine to Italy and beyond. Some people may go to amusement parks for thrills. Others of us head for a bookshop. ( )

The editor took a group of authors from around the world, and asked them to write about their favorite bookshops. Just about every essay was fully engaging, and it was a wonderful look at the world through the bookstores that impress the very people that fill them with their works. Some of the essays were straightforward writings about why these bookshops were important to the author, but others were much more free-ranging, or even slightly experimental. Most of the time, you can't go wrong when you collect authors and let them loose on a topic that's near and dear to their hearts. If I ever traveled, this would be a great source of places to go. ( )