Not Built for Books (8 Photos)

Bookshops That Used to Be Something Else

Every bookshop here took over a place built for another job, and none of them tried to hide it. In Buenos Aires you look for novels under the painted ceiling of a 1919 theater.

More: For Book Lovers (8 Photos)

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🎭 El Ateneo Grand Splendid — A Former Theater in Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷

The red curtain frames the stage, the balconies curve around the hall, and the stalls are full of bookshelves. The Grand Splendid opened as a theater in 1919 and became a bookstore in 2000, with a café where the stage used to be, at Avenida Santa Fe 1860. It is hard to browse quietly in a room built for applause.

💡 Film Fact: The theater showed the first “talkies” seen in Buenos Aires, and a radio station, LR4 Radio Splendid, broadcast from the building from 1923.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Deensel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🚂 Barter Books — An Old Railway Station in Alnwick, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Gold letters over an arched station door spell out the shop’s name. Barter Books fills the old railway station in Alnwick, designed by William Bell in 1887. The branch line closed in 1968, and today a model railway runs between the book columns of the central room.

💡 Poster Fact: The owners, Stuart and Mary Manley, found an original “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster at the bottom of a box of used books they bought at auction. It went on display in 2000 and started the Keep Calm craze.

📷 Photo: Victuallers / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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⛪ Boekhandel Dominicanen — A Medieval Church in Maastricht, Netherlands 🇳🇱

Black steel shelves climb two floors beside Gothic columns in a church consecrated in 1294. Since 2006 the old Dominican church has been a bookstore, fitted out by the architects Merkx + Girod, at Dominicanerkerkstraat 1.

💡 Odd Jobs Fact: Before the books, the church served as a snake house, a bicycle shed and a carnival venue. In 2025 a public vote named it the world’s most beautiful bookstore.

📷 Photo: Jorge Franganillo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🛶 Word on the Water — A 1920s Dutch Barge in London, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

This bookshop floats. Word on the Water sells books from a 100-year-old Dutch barge on the Regent’s Canal towpath at King’s Cross, and musicians use the roof as a stage.

💡 Mooring Fact: For years the owners had to move the barge to a new berth every 14 days, until a community campaign helped them win a permanent one.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Jim Linwood / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🔥 Leakey’s Bookshop — An 18th-Century Church in Inverness, Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

A wood-burning stove stands in the middle of a church built in 1792–93, with logs stacked beside it and secondhand books up to the gallery. It is said to be the largest secondhand bookshop in Scotland, on Church Street.

💡 History Fact: Charles Leakey founded the shop in 1979 and moved it into the old Greyfriars church in the early 1990s.

📷 Photo: LeamingtonBooks / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🐑 The Wool Exchange — A Victorian Trading Hall in Bradford, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Wool merchants once traded under this hammerbeam roof. Lockwood and Mawson designed the Grade I listed Wool Exchange, completed in 1867, and Waterstones opened a bookshop inside in 1996, on Market Street. From the café on the mezzanine, you look straight across the arches.

💡 Prime Minister Fact: The foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston.

📷 Photo: Mtaylor848 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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☀️ Bart’s Books — A Home Turned Open-Air Shop in Ojai, California, USA 🇺🇸

Bookshelves are built into the outside walls of this small house, facing the sidewalk. In 1964 Richard Bartinsdale set bookcases along the sidewalk by his home and left coffee cans on top for payment. It grew into the open-air bookshop at 302 West Matilija Street, where many of the books sit under the sky.

💡 Honor Fact: Books on the outside shelves are sold on the honor system, by dropping money through a slot in the front door.

📷 Photo: Dreamyshade / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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🌾 The Montague Bookmill — A 19th-Century Gristmill in Montague, Massachusetts, USA 🇺🇸

Red clapboard walls, a small cupola on the roof and café tables out on the decks. The Bookmill sells used books in an 1842 gristmill on the banks of the Sawmill River, on Greenfield Road. It has been open since 1987. Its motto is honest about the location: “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.”

📷 Photo: AtsushiJC / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Which one is your favorite?