bookstore

The legendary publisher Taschen is opening a brand new store in the heart of South Beach, Miami. For those of you who either live in the area or just can't get enough on the literary world even while on vacation the new space should be a welcome edition to a town not known for the pursuit of intellectual goals. That being said, Taschen is known for being not only hip and contemporary but a publisher with a long list of books that more staid institutions would be afraid to print.

As always the company is concerned with not only the design of their books but the atmosphere and space where their clients can explore their merchandise. The South Beach store is no exception to this rule. The store is one of only thirteen high-end storefronts located in a brand new building designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Maeuron. Customers can turn the pages of their favorite art books in a space created by Philippe Stark, the legendary Frenchman who has designed all the Taschen stores worldwide. The company commissioned British artist Toby Ziegler to design interior murals and a hand-poured terrazzo floor. In a nod to the location the floors of the space are composed of stones native to the area of South Florida.

The inventory at this store will include the publisher's art, photography, design, architecture, sex, travel , cinema and pop culture as well as a good selection of Portuguese and Spanish language titles. Like all things South Beach the store is planning to be open late until 10pm Sundays through Thursdays and 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays. If you'd like to celebrate the opening please join the store's celebration at 1111 Lincoln Road on Saturday March 20th from 4-6pm . The event will include drinks and music from DJ Faux Real and of course lots of books.

A nearly 200-year-old bookstore in Sydney is uniting bibliophiles and oenophiles with a simple, yet brilliant idea: serving wine in their reading room.

Like languishing in the library of someone's country home, guests at Berkelouw Books in Leichhardt, Sydney, can lounge on plush couches and at comfortable tables with plates of cheese and Australian wines while perusing their selection of rare, out-of-print, secondhand and new books. It's a wonderful way to create community, allowing book-lovers to enjoy a book in their store the same way they would at home.

Berkelouw Books has a rich, six generation history of trading in rare and antiquarian books. "Now that people are getting to know about us, we've had great success with our boutique wines and lots of positive feedback," owner Colin Cappelleri told Reuters.

It makes the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble seem positively vulgar.

[via Reuters]

In the age of digital books, the Kindle, and, ahem, blogs, one unassailable argument for the survival of paper are beautiful, lavishly designed books. Books that are actually pleasing design objects, if not works of art.

Persephone Books is a small London book publisher on a wonderful shopping street called Lamb's Conduit, which I discovered on a retail tour led by Clare Dowdy, author of One Off, about unique retailers worldwide. (Arrange Dowdy's tour through the InterContinental Park Lane London.)

Persephone, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, publishes just 83 books, and ones you won't easily find elsewhere -- neglected classics by 20th century writers who are mostly women. Their books are bound in an elegant dove gray, and the endpapers are unique to each book, and are prints of antique fabric designs. (You can get a matching bookmark.) It's fun to visit the store and hard to buy just one -- I walked away with An Interrupted Life: The Diary of Etty Hillesum, and The Journal of Katherine Mansfield -- although you can also order online.