I enjoy visiting bookstores.

Several posts here are dedicated to the bookstores I have visited in other cities. For example, MIT Press bookstore in Boston and Livraria Cultura in Iguatemi, Saõ Paulo. This is my second post on a bookstore in Köln. The first one on Siebter Himmel is here.

Warning: there are only photos of books here, stacks and stacks of them !

 

This bookstore simply named Büchermarkt (book market) occupies at least three floors of this brick building on Breite Straße 79 , 50667 Cologne.

 

 

It may very well be a chain store and I just went to one of its branches. But this is one with the largest collection of art books I have seen recently. Very cramped and stocked with many different titles.

 

 

Near the entrance, they have the new and discounted books including many of the coffee table tomes put out by Taschen and Phaidon.

 

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And then it is just wall-to-wall books. From fashion to fine art to film.

 

 

Even more liberal art and cultural books upstairs. I read somewhere that Cologne produces most of the TV shows of Germany. There is probably a sizable population of media types to keep such a bookstore alive.

 

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There is a “balcony” where the two floors are connected by a double height space.

 

 

Without this double height space, it can feel very claustrophobic.

 

 

There is another floor… a narrow wooden staircase leading up …  I have found the out-of-print section. There are some Artists’ books (Künstlerbücher) on display here.

 

 

There was a desk and a storekeeper at the top who asked me to leave my bag at the entrance. This place really felt like a library – the smell of old books. There were no price tags on the books here.

 

 

Art books are full of pictures. I can spend days in here even I do not read German.