So, you have probably heard about a bookstore with the same name, but located in Paris, France? We even have a post on it on our blog, right here. But this is a totally different one, located in the heart of Vienna, Austria. Not sure those two booksellers are in any way related, but I am thinking no. The Austrian one has probably gone for reusing a well-known name, but shouldn’t it be copyright though?
Anyway, this bookstore is somewhat similar to the Parisian one in that it only contains English books and it has a similar dusty atmosphere. Lots of books stacked on the shelves in a somewhat chaotic manner. Not too much space. However – and this is the highlight of this store – their selection on Viennese/Hapsburg/Austrian history and culture is something to be proud of. Besides, they have a shelf on Austrian writers and writers who wrote about Austria featuring novels like Saramago’s The Elephant’s Journey. I picked up a long-wanted autobiography by Thomas Bernhard and an intimidating-looking The Habsburg Empire: A New History by Pieter M. Judson. Beware: there are no price stickers on the books (at least, I didn’t see any), so you can never tell how much a books costs unless you ask the staff (the staff here are pretty nice, by the way). I ended up paying over 50 euros for these two books, which I think is a bit too much even by Austrian standards (besides, Bernhard’s book is of meh quality).
They also have a good selection of other genres, I just wasn’t very interested in anything apart from Viennese/Austrian lit at that time. So, overall, this is a classical booklover’s paradise that I recommend to visit. The prices are a bit extravagant, though, but hey, you are in Vienna, what did you expect?
As a bonus – they also have a wonderful Walther König bookstore devoted mainly to art in MuseumsQuartier which I visited after a megadose of Egon Schiele at Leopold Museum. I was able to find a book that I’d been hunting after called The Age of Insight by Eric R. Kandel, and I even paid 56 euros for it, but only God knows how my knees trembled when I took out my wallet.
