Attention, bibliophiles: Put Strasbourg, the largest city in eastern France, on your radar. Once home to the godfather of publishing – 15th-century printing press pioneer Johannes Gutenberg – the city is UNESCO’s World Book Capital for 2024. Until next April, more than 200 events and activities will take place in and around Strasbourg, a multilingual city on the German border, whose half-timbered gingerbread houses, gabled roofs, picturesque canals and church spiers seem to have sprung from a storybook of their own.
Among the events are exhibitions dedicated to Gustave Doré—a native of Strasbourg and perhaps the most famous illustrator of literary works of the 19th century—and Julie Doucet, a pioneering graphic designer and visual artist from Quebec. The annual Fête des Imprimeurs on June 29 and 30 at Place Gutenberg will showcase all the trades involved in bookmaking, including through interactive workshops.
But the UNESCO events are not the only reasons to visit. Strasbourg has plenty of spots for the literary geeks who live there, from comic shops and indie trade book stores to historical libraries and antiquities specialists. Here are six favorites.
Place Gutenberg: The Story Begins
Originally from Mainz, Germany (about 100 miles away), Gutenberg lived in Strasbourg in the 1430s and 1440s, developing the initial plans for his revolutionary movable type printing press, which would come to fruition in Mainz in the 1450s.
To honor him, Strasbourg in 1840 erected a statue in a square near the city’s red sandstone cathedral, whose Gothic design another German visitor, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, famously rhapsodized about. (The future literary star studied in Strasbourg in the early 1770s, living nearby at 36 rue du Vieux-Marché-aux-Poisson.)
The stone statue shows Gutenberg, bearded and formal, holding a page bearing the French words “Et la lumière fut”—”And there was light”—a reference both to his famous Bibles and to the enlightenment of humanity made possible by the dissemination of forms.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, some of the fruits of Gutenberg’s invention — used books and historical prints — are sold near the open-air book market along the rue des Hallebardes, just across the street.
Fairy tales and pens
The smells of leather, parchment and dust fill La Jument Verte, an antique bookstore on the rue des Juifs, one of the streets near the cathedral where some of Europe’s oldest printing presses once operated.
Sunny and cheerful, the shop has extensive displays of French-language works on history, science and medicine, including an 1863 Paris travel guide (€80 or about $87) and an 1870 surgical primer (€200). Literary works are another specialty. If you don’t have €50,000 for the first six volumes of the original 1668 edition of La Fontaine’s fables, a pillar of French literature, a six-volume set of the Divine Comedy, illustrated by Salvador Dali, costs a mere €5,800.
If you feel inspired to do some sketching or climbing afterwards, the city’s chicest stationery store is just a few steps away: Monogram. Don’t miss the display cases full of handmade Namiki pens from Japan. Each is an individual work of art decorated with gold dust and lacquer (€1,580 to €2,850). Less extravagant items also abound, such as Lamali’s rustic leather-bound notebooks (€65) and scraps of greeting cards, wrapping paper and bookmarks.
Surrealism, satire and more
An extensive collection of historical works can be perused — for free — in the bustling, airy library of the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, a repository of some 140,000 books, periodicals, museum catalogs and other materials.
Want to flip through the original manifestos of the Dada movement? Just ask. Published in 1918 in the Zurich-based group’s Dada magazine, poet Tristan Tzara’s so-called manifesto (written in French) still surprises with its absurd tone, absurd language, inventive syntax and gleeful vulgarity as it mocks literature, art, language and power.
The magazine archive includes famous titles related to surrealism (Minotaur), German art (Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration), French satire (Le Charivari) and photography (Nouvelle Vision). A maze of shelves filled with mostly French books on a range of subjects — from art history and architecture to ceramics and graphic design — rounds out the offerings.
If you’re looking for something to take home, the museum’s bookstore down the hall has a range of English-language gems, from “Dan Graham’s New Jersey” (€45) to “Young, Gifted and Black: A New Generation of Artists” (€50).
A stream of words
The prize for the most welcoming bookstore goes to L’Oiseau Rare (the rare bird), a small, cozy hangout in a half-timbered yellow house from 1600. It’s one of three bookstores along the Quai des Bateliers, a lovely, tree-lined canalside promenade that could easily be renamed Readers’ Row.
Equipped with a three-table cafe and hung with paintings by co-owner Diane Albisser — whose scenes of dance halls and boxing rings draw inspiration from African-American history — the shop specializes in French literary works and social activist prose, particularly feminism, race and the environment. You can walk in for a café au lait (€3.80) and walk around with novels by Françoise Sagan, a bilingual edition of Maya Angelou’s poetry, and Mary Shelley’s pamphlets translated into the language of Molière.
Down on the waterfront, in another half-timbered house, Le Tigre is bursting with French-language comics, manga, graphic novels and other illustrated works. Wordless treats also abound, from pop culture icons (the Notorious BIG, Grandpa Munster; €25) to vintage vinyl albums (€15 to €20) by David Bowie, Bud Powell and other rock and jazz heavyweights.
Things suddenly turn dark inside La Tache Noire (The Black Stain), a sanctuary for crime fiction fans from China, India, Iceland, Mexico, Belgium, France and other faraway nations. Almost everything is in French, though a section of American and British Hall-of-Famers, from Raymond Chandler to James Ellroy, caters to English speakers.
Central Vapeur: Postcard from the Margin
The location of Central Vapeur, an arts organization dedicated to alternative illustration, graphics and comics, is fitting. Occupying a warehouse in a semi-cleared industrial zone, the group’s headquarters are on the geographical edge of Strasbourg, and its tiny bookstore is similarly filled with visions and voices from the fringes.
Inside, a pipe-smoking cartoon elephant in striped trousers peeks out from a tote bag (€8). A pink-eyed skull covered in birthday candles peeks out from a tiny round lapel button (€1.50). Donald Trump, biting into an Earth-like scoop of ice cream, grimaces at the world from a wall poster (€40). Stunning designs, postcards and prints also decorate the store.
In addition to graphic novels by local authors, the store’s offerings include bilingual French-English design magazines such as Cercle (published in Strasbourg, €22) and Back Office (a Paris-based magazine, €20).
And if you’re up for a festival, the organization hosts Format(s), which celebrates French and international graphic design.
Place Kléber: A multilingual Mecca
Even if Strasbourg’s grandest, liveliest square didn’t have a thrice-weekly vintage book market (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), a Japanese comics mall (Le Camphrier) or a large French-language bookstore (Librarie Kléber) , would still be a must-stop thanks to the globally rotating Librarie du Monde Entier. Poetry translation: The Whole Earth Bookstore.
Desperate to find a Basque conversation guide? Look no further. Danish version of “The Handmaid’s Tale”? Same amount. Urdu dictionaries, modern Turkish novels, Russian story books for children — all in their original language? Everyone is here. Bilingual books also abound, from Italian-English editions of Machiavelli’s The Prince to Franco-English editions of the experimental French classic Zazie dans le Métro.
The strongest offerings are in English-language fiction, history, biography and current affairs. You might even find a remaining edition (€6) of ’84, Charing Cross Road’, Helene Hanff’s charming collection of letters on the book trade. As she writes, “Buying a book you’ve never read is like buying a dress you’ve never tried on.” So always take your time to browse.
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