A review by joaniemaloney
Bookshops by Jorge Carrión

3.0

I'm really not the target audience for this but I picked it up anyway, so it's mostly my fault. I'm not nearly well-travelled or well-read enough (in English or other languages!) or will be in my lifetime to get to even familiarize myself with names of these bookshops, much less get to step inside them myself. There was no way I'd be able to keep up, but my curiosity got the better of me. It's like chatting with a companion who keeps switching to different languages when talking about all the places they've been to all around the world, with names of friends they've known or still keep up with when they go back, but you'll never make their acquaintance. You keep listening and don't have anything else to add, only thinking of how fortunate some lives are in comparison to your own. I appreciate this being translated in English but if English is your only language or your main one, this may be a bit of a challenge! You're much better off if you've travelled in South America or at least familiarized yourself with the bookshops and authors and relationships between them beforehand. Even better if you know Paris very well (yes, I haven't been either), and best of all, many of the famed bookshops in the continents of Europe and South America that are no longer with us.

PS: I wonder why pictures were even included in this book when most of them were so tiny, without captions, and the poor quality made the black-and-white shots even harder to make out. My favourites were the business cards by far because of the easily distinguishable text.