In this bookshop guide, Kevin Longrie takes us on a tour of some of Hong Kong‘s best offerings. If you know a city with great spots for book lovers, you can find information about how to contribute to our global bookshop guide series at the end of this article.

Being a bookseller in Hong Kong isn’t easy. The obstacles range from the economic (topping lists of the most expensive commercial real estate) to the apathetic (do people read anymore?) to the political (Google it). Consider the cases of Bleak House Books, a bibliophile’s dream and a boon to the literary community here, which had to relocate from Kowloon to New York along with the family that owns it. Or Parenthèses, the gorgeous French bookstore that may close soon because rents keep going up and the Francophone community is no longer as large in Hong Kong after the COVID-19 lockdowns saw an expat exodus. But despite the unhelpful and misleading stereotype that people here are too busy to pick up a book, my own experience with Hong Kongers – as well as immigrants to the city – has been one of deep mutual appreciation for the written word. There are plenty of places like Art & Culture Outreach, Mount Zero Books, and Jisaam Books that host community events, author Q&As (usually in Cantonese), and local artists.  

There are far more bookstores worth visiting than I have the space to tell you about now; but for the sake of transparency, I’ll say that considering the publication I’m writing for and the language it’s published in, I’ll focus more of my attention of the bookstores that carry a significant number of English books (which rules out the fantastic Sham Shui Po spots JP Books and Hunter Bookshop, the latter with storefront art by Merry). I’m also going to avoid good chain bookstores like eslite and coffee table charms like TASCHEN.  

Hong Kong Reader 

Hong Kong Reader is a small shop in a narrow building in Mong Kok, a neighborhood that even by HK standards is bustling and crowded. Its owners are friendly and knowledgeable, its loyalty program is reasonably priced, and its mini café/reading space is flooded with soft natural light. Its English selection skews towards philosophy, politics, and – well – political philosophy. There are assorted second-hand books that might range wider, but go here for your Verso, your Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, and academic histories and analysis on the Sinosphere. Don’t forget to tip the cat.

Lily Bookshop 

The owner of this Sheung Wan second-hand bookshop – I’ll give you three guesses what her name is – opened in 2017 and gives you the quintessential towers-of-barely-organised-books feel that so many of us crave. If you have time enough for a treasure hunt, spending a half hour crouching, shifting, and scanning in Lily Bookshop often yields interesting finds. (I’ve found more success there in snagging an old Virago Modern Classic or mid-century comic novel than I have in the more sprawling, picturesque Books & Co, which has gems buried quite deep under out-of-date business management books, beach reads, and pop psychology detritus.) Lily also has some first and collector’s editions for less than you’ll spend down the street at the beautiful but dear Lok Man Rare Books.

Kubrick

With light wood panelling, tungsten lighting, and local artists on display on the café wall, Kubrick in Yau Ma Tei is nothing if not inviting. It’s also housed in the same building as Broadway Cinematheque, the premiere arthouse cinema in Hong Kong and a repository of physical media of all types, for sale and for loan (to members). The book selection is vast (by Hong Kong standards, where space is always a premium). You can find boutique magazines, literature in translation, graphic novels, as well as shelves upon shelves of film interviews, analyses and biographies. The two drawbacks of Kubrick are the mark-up (which is reasonable considering they import a lot of editions you can’t find elsewhere in the city) and the plastic wrap they have around most books. Lament, fellow browsers.

Spirit book store   

This modest storefront in North Point, wedged between a florist and a handyman, does not, at first, lend the hopeless English monoglot much, well, hope. There are hundreds of community bookshops in Hong Kong that cater to schoolchildren – prep books, stationary, and even a few toys; Spirit book store might be mistaken for one. But inside, there are rows of new and used English books, mostly on the centre tables. George Orwell sits beside Murakami in translation; a worn copy of a memoir by Chris Patten, the last colonial Governor of Hong Kong; J.M. Coetzee rubbing elbows with George R.R. Martin. But don’t worry – if you want a test prep book, they’ve got those too. 

This list is highly personal, and would look different if I were able to read more than a meagre handful of Chinese characters or if I’d been able to go to all of the places I’ve been meaning to check out, like knock knock near Hong Kong University or Book Punch in Sham Shui Po. Nevertheless, I wish you many wonderful hours of book-crawling across this unforgettable city.

Note: This bookshop guide gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image credit: Jason Yuen on Unsplash.

Do you know a place with great bookshops? As part of a regular feature on LSE Review of Books, we’re asking academics and students to recommend their favourite bookshops in a particular city or town to share with our book-loving community of readers the world over.

Bookshops could be academic, alternative, multilingual, hobby-based, secret or underground institutions, second-hand outlets or connected to a university. We’d like to cover all world regions too and are particularly keen to feature cities outside of Europe and North America.

If something comes to mind, we’re looking for a brief introduction about the city, a selection of three or four bookshops with around 150 words per bookshop, detailing why each one is a must-see. Our editorial team can then find suitable photos and links to accompany the piece, though you’re welcome to supply these too.

Email us if you’d like to contribute: lsereviewofbooks@lse.ac.uk