A bookstore you can sleep in. My dream come true. The Book & Bed Hostel is established in Tokyo, with another one now in Kyoto. Your sleep cubicle comes equipped with an outlet, a light, a privacy curtain, clothes hangers, and a wireless connection. There’s also beer.
Book & Bed is a self-described “accommodation bookshop” with beds built into bookshelves. When the first Tokyo location opened last year, bibliophiles were obviously overjoyed because, for the first time, it was socially acceptable to wander into a bookshop, pick up a book, and then doze off to sleep. Now, the popular concept hotel is getting a 2nd location in Kyoto.
beds are embedded into bookshelves and surrounded by over 5000 books.
Rates are low and start at just 4,445 yen (about $40) for a compact bed. But if you’re a light sleeper, or privacy is your big thing, the Book & Bed hostel may not be for you. Sleeping areas are semi-private with just a curtain separating you from other book dwellers. And bathroom areas are shared too. In fact, the bookshop hostel doesn’t promise “a good night’s sleep.” Instead, the promise “the finest moment of sleep”: dozing off in the middle of your treasured pastime, immersed in books.
I think I’d want to stay…for always. What a wonderful idea. Via Spoon & Tamago.
Sign me up. “Never leave” doesn’t quite capture the meaning of what I wish to do (I’d haunt the place -- probably, eventually, quite literally).
is it bad the first thing I noticed in the top picture were the Docs
Whilst I haven’t been there in more than a decade, easily one of my favourite bookshops is the legendary Bookshop Santa Cruz (California). Not a B&B, but a personal. intimate, shop, now with an attached espresso bar, tolerant of reading books in-shop, and — perhaps unusual in the States — with a wide selection of International press (newspapers, magazines, &tc).
One of my favourite stories dates to just before my last visit (so I wasn’t there for the incident). Apparently, one of the large chain bookshops had opened just across the street a few years before, with (at least for bestsellers) lower prices. In addition, one of the chain’s high mucky-muck droids had said Bookshop Santa Cruz was an example of (paraphrasing) “The kind of shop we are seeking to replace”…
The chain’s shop closed within a year or three-ish. Bookshop Santa Cruz quoted a customer as saying to a clerk when purchasing a book (paraphrase) “I know I can get this cheaper across the street, but I prefer browsing here.”
Another favourite shop is the (much larger) Hodges Figgis in Dublin, Ireland. There are actually quite a number of good shops in Dublin…
Here in France, I’ve never found a favourite, in part because I’m mostly looking for English-language. Book In Bar (Aix-en-Provence) is where I tend to go now — there is none (English-wise) in the village where I live — which, like Bookshop Santa Cruz, is personal. intimate, with an attached espresso bar, tolerant of reading books in-shop, but lacks the selection…
How I miss bookshops… During my time at the uni I used walk home (dorm) from school multiple times a week instead of taking the tram. I had three antique book shops and five regular book shops on the way and I went through them all. Sometimes I bought something, but mostly not. But I enjoyed immensely browsing and searching for something interesting.
Now I live in an area where the closest bookshop is 40 km away. When I want a book, I have to order it online. And for that I need to know in advance that I really, really want it.
As a result I almost ceased to read books. Since Dawkins turned asshole and Terry Pratchett died, there are not many books that I could confidently say that I want them without at least glancing through them in advance.
When I was in the US I enjoyed Barnes & Noble shops. I still have a few books about art that I bought there.
I love used bookstores, and there was a fantastic one around the corner from where I lived in Toronto during university (it was still there two years ago!). Had decently rare books, too, but mostly it was time well-spent browsing at no hurry. The salespeople got to know me to the point where they could recommend new used books that had come in that might interest me. As a bonus, they also had music (in CD format, back when that was still a thing :P), and it was a good source of random selections of sometimes-odd music.
But bookstores are an island of peace for me, there’s one in the train station and when I’m stressed or I have the time after work, I make sure to stop in just to browse, though these days I spend more time discovering new and interesting children’s books with wonderful artwork rather than reading books for me (though at least the station bookstore has a decent selection of books in English; while I’m fully literate, I’m not fully comfortable reading books in Latvian or translated into Latvian, unless they’re the right kind, and it’s hard to define exactly what that means except that the vast majority of books miss the mark, but I try to be open about that).
I’ve never been here, or indeed (as far as I can recall) even heard of this shop, but in the Granuiad, Interview with a bookstore: Green Apple Books in San Francisco (Oct-2016): “A huge store found in the San Francisco Bay area, Green Apple Books has a ‘circus, magic and hobos’ section and a wealth of stories, on everything from proposals, deaths and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake”. From the description in the “interview”, it sounds like a groovy place to visit / browse…
Hah, “dozing off in the middle of your treasured pastime, immersed in books,” or as I’m more likely to do, “finish the book, realize it’s 3am, and try to get some sleep before the alarm goes off in a few hours….”
Freethinkingahead:
That’s me!
For the people it is serving, this is quite possibly the best bookshop ever, Istanbul bookshop that transports young Syrians back home: