Well well well, it has been quite a while since I’ve last posted and a new year has begun in the meantime.

Last weekend, I had the luxury of a long weekend at work for the holiday and I decided to use it to take a little trip for me. I used to live in Manhattan for school and, looking back at my short time there, always realize how little I was able to do while I was there. I feel like you could live there for years and still barely touch it as there is so much to see!

Going back to visit a friend for a bit, I needed to fill half a day while she was at work. I decided to fill it with books. I managed to go all around Manhattan to multiple places, but also made it to four bookshops in the process.

First stop: Brooklyn Bridge to walk across for a beautiful and foggy morn!

Rain started to mist by as well, which only added to the ambiance of my first bookstore stop.

1st bookstore: The Mysterious Bookshop

Within the Mysterious Bookshop, one will find just that: mystery! Every mystery book you could ever wish to shake a stick at, you will find here!

Here to begin my bookshop stops I gave myself a rule: buy one book at each store. This being my first stop to set the rules, you’d have thought I would have followed them. No, I bought three (mind you, this was the only store I bought more than my started goal) and a tote bag, so that I could better carry these and the couple more to come.

My list of books that I picked up from The Mysterious Bookshop:

–The Alienist by Caleb Carr

–And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (I am shocked I have not read this book yet!)

–The Murders In The Red Morgue: The Dupin Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

2nd bookstore: The Albertine

One of the most beautiful, as well as compact, little bookshops you can find in NYC. I happened across it on an Atlas Obscura list and thought that this was a great place to see if mainly for it’s mural on the second floor ceiling. It is a wonderful little shop curated with French and English books with an extremely helpful and friendly staff. I managed to find a copy of Emile Zola’s Au Bonheur Des Dames, or The Ladies’ Delight, which inspired the television adaptation of The Paradise (which I recommend as it has fabulous costuming).

This is such a stunning mural of stars, planets and astrological signs, is it not?

Moving right along…

3rd Bookstore: The Corner Bookstore

The cutest little shop you might set your eyes upon! But, even with it small size, it has quite a selection to please your whimsy or drama needs, as well as quite the children’s book selection! It is the perfect little haven that I slinked into due to the rain. You can sit on one of the little park benches in the front or peruse every book on every shelf!

I refused to leave without a book and found a book that a dear friend suggested to me many moons ago:

–The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

And onto more…

4th Bookstore: Book Culture (on 112th Street)

With four different locations to choose from, I decided on the location on 112th street due to my want to stop by The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine to see a sculpture, which happened to be a block or so away from Book Culture.

This was the only bookstore in which I failed to purchase a book. Although there were many to choose from, I could not decide on just one and, sadly, walked out empty handed. That’s not to say that they did not have a large selection – they just had a larger selection than the previous bookstores and I would’ve needed more time to take a look around and really hone in on that special book that jumped out at me.

So there you have it, my half-day searching for books in Manhattan, NYC! Now, the hard part, carving out enough time to read all of these books!

What are you currently reading?

Have any suggestions for me?