PHOTOGRAPHS: COURTESY OF LER DEVAGAR, PHILIP LEE HARVEY, PETER CONNER/ALAMY
LER DEVAGAR, LISBON
Last time I stopped in at Lisbon’s Ler Devagar bookshop, I had
my book-loving parents in tow. I knew they would appreciate
the somewhat chaotic array of books that fill this former printing
space as much as I did. The English-language section is small,
so you might not pick up your next great read, but, if you
climb your way up to the printing press at the top, you’ll find
something you won’t in just any bookstore – Pietro Proserpio.
This artist/ inventor has filled the space with his unique creations,
and will happily take you on a tour to show you how his whimsical
contraptionswork.wasborn,andwasintrigued
to spota cheapcopyof
TheJungleBookonone
of thetarp-coveredbook
stallsat HutatmaChowk.
Dwarfedbytowersof
paperbacks,thebooksellers
herearelikeamateur
librarians,ableto laytheir
handsonalmostanytitle
youaskfor,fromFiftyShades
of Greyto a copyof Amitav
Ghosh’sTheShadowLines.
Tome,thesewell-thumbed
booksspokevolumesabout
thewaysMumbai’sreaders
havechangedin the 150
yearssincethecitygave
us Kipling.ALEX BUTLER
Senior editor, lonelyplanet.com @AlexPButlerHAZELLUBBOCK
Leadeditor,video @hazellubbockORLATHOMAS
Featureseditor
@OrlaThomasHARVARD BOOK STORE, BOSTON
I had no intention of spending any of my short trip to the Boston area in
a bookstore. I was wandering Harvard Yard, the historical part of the
Harvard campus, when it started pouring, so I ran into the Harvard
Book Store for shelter. The locally-owned (since 1932) store isn’t
affliated with the university, but was full of students huddled in the data
science and psychology sections. I found myself in the used-books
section, bought a scrappy copy of Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa
for $3 and took an Uber to the Lord Hobo pub where I sat for the rest
of the day with a bowl of tomato soup and an IPA. I called it ‘living like
a local’ and cancelled the rest of the afternoon’s sightseeing plans.HUTATMA CHOWK MUMBAI
A few years ago I visited India
on a research trip for this magazine,
investigating Rudyard Kipling’s
connections with the country.
I spent time in Mumbai, where he