The world’s greatest bookshops

John Sandoe is just yards from the teeming traffic of Chelsea’s King’s Road, but it might as well be a world away. First, there’s the picture-postcard setting, in a trio of Regency cottages; second, its air of bookish enchantment. Light floods in through the picture windows as customers pick their way through the stacked tomes on the shelves, or shuffle over well-worn floorboards and up the book-piled staircase. There are no signs or indications of genre, the better for customers to experience what staff here call “bookshop serendipity” – stumbling upon something you never knew existed, never mind wanted.

“Get lost in the stacks” is The Strand’s motto, which, in true New York style, sounds part-boast, part-brush off. And with 18 miles of books, it’s no idle injunction. Its treasures run from the bargain carts outside to the massed ranks of best-sellers, along with the arcane delights of its catnip-for-collectors rare book room. Founded in the 1920s, and so cherished a downtown destination that it’s been granted city landmark status, The Strand has catered to the spiritual needs of generations of New Yorkers, and employed the likes of Patti Smith, Sam Shepard and Mary Gaitskill along the way.

A serene sanctuary from the relentless bustle of Bangkok, Dasa takes its name from the word for ‘servant’ in Buddhist texts – the idea being that book lovers are slaves to the written word. And who wouldn’t be happy to submit to Bangkok’s best and cosiest used bookstore? It stocks over 16,000 mostly English-language titles, sorted by genre and alphabetised by author – a rarity in Thailand – to be pored over with a tea and home-baked cake from the bijou but beguiling café.

A veritable cultural institution in Tokyo, Tsutaya’s T-site branch is a mini-campus of three interlocked buildings, not far from Shibuya, stocking everything from travel guides to art and design tomes, along with international magazines and vintage titles. The buildings are clad in a latticed façade and linked by louvred steel bridges, giving the feel of a stylishly contemporary university. You’re welcome to take a book to ‘pre-read’ at the upstairs benches or tables, or even over a cocktail at the second-floor Anjin Lounge. And it’s open till 2am, so nightbirds are also catered for.