A little tip for your stay: forget Tolstoy, Dickens or the other heavyweights. This city has quite enough high-drama to keep you occupied. That said, some light reading material – be it good beach book, salacious Bangkok crime thriller or shoestring travel guide – is a must for any visitor to the capital. Not only will it come in handy for those afternoons spent reclining in a poolside chair, but also the coach, boat, train or airline to your next destination. Fortunately Bangkok has new and used bookshops all over town. Some are monster chain stores, others independents of the dusty and musty variety. These are the best in town…
Asia Books
Location: 14 stores, including Sukhumvit Road, Siam Paragon, Emporium, CentralWorld, Thaniya Plaza
With the bigger and frankly better ‘Kinokuniya’ stealing its thunder, Asia Books no longer dominates the Bangkok book scene the way it once did. Still, for sheer city-wide coverage it can’t be beat. No less than 14 starkly white shops scattered around town, most found in the great and good of Bangkok’s malls, including Siam Paragon, Siam Discovery and CentralWorld.
The selection of fiction is good, best-sellers mingling with Victorian classics, crime thrillers and much more (expect to pay between 300-400 baht for a paperback). The specialist sections on art, graphic arts etc are a tad light, while the travel section veers heavily toward Southeast Asia. An in-house publishing label means it gets exclusive distribution rights too many books about the region. Also good for magazines and books for aspiring Thai speakers.
B2S
Location: Central Chidlom; CentralWorld, Central Ladphrao among others
The chain store B2S is great for magazines and stationery but also stocks a good range of new books. It’s owned by the Central Group so branches can be found at all their stores, the likes of Central Chidlom Department Store, Central Lad Phrao and CentralWorld. Expect a wide range of hardback and paperbacks encompassing new releases, Asian fiction, textbooks, self-help, travel, classics and chick lit.
Bangkok Rare Books Location: 2nd Floor Amarin Plaza, Ploenchit Road, Lumpini
If you like rare first-edition books, particularly dusty ones bound in leather and dating as far back as the 17th century, you’ll adore this place. Here find colonial-era travel narratives about treks through Southeast Asia’s deepest jungles, illustrated children’s fairytales and classics by the likes of Maugham, Greene and Hemingway. They’re not cheap though. A first-edition of Carl Bock’s ‘Temples and Elephants’, complete with engraved plates of King Chulalonkorn and 40 pages of illustrations, will set you back a cool $1,450 for example.
Bookazine Location: Patpong (CP Tower), Ploenchit (Sogo Department Store), Silom Complex, Siam Center, Sukhumvit Road (Noi Lert Building close to soi 5).
This long-standing chain was recently merged with Asia Books but retains its name. Its smaller stores stock a mixture of bestsellers, travel guides, self-help books etc, as well as a large selection of international newspapers and magazines. Prices are on a par, usually, with the likes of Asia Books (not surprisingly) and Kinokuniya.
Dasa Bookshop Location: 710/4 Sukhumvit Road, between Soi 26 & 28, near BTS Phrom Phong
Fancy cozying up with the latest Murakami and a Mocha? Then decamp to this hip secondhand bookshop in Sukhumvit. Located in a two-storey shophouse, decorated in subdued earth tones, the esteemed Dasa boasts over 12,000 genre-spanning titles, while also doubling up as a café serving sumptuous cakes and fresh coffee. Most books are in English but they also stock French, German, Scandanavian and Swedish editions. Prices are good and their website features a regularly updated booklist, a downloadable Excel spreadsheet cataloguing what’s in stock and its price.
Kinokuniya
Locations: Isetan Department Store (6th floor), The Emporium (3rd floor), Siam Paragon
The United Nations of Bangkok book sellers: huge, well-managed, with tens of thousands of imported books in many different languages (Chinese, Thai, Japanese, French, German, English). Come for the broadest selection of Asian, best sellers, thrillers and poetry in town; to cultivate your intellect with academic tomes on languages, macro economics or post-modernism; or the entire corner dedicated to travel guides.
Prices are generally higher than in used bookstores, though paperback and hardback new releases – US or UK editions usually – are often sold for a 20% discount (around the 250-400 baht mark). New editions of classics by the likes of Austin, Conrad, and Dickens can be snapped up for as little as 120 baht. Also includes a great selection of Thai books, Manga and international magazines, as well as a smart adjoining coffee shop.
Moonlight Bookshop
Location: 46/1 Khao San Road
Less a bookstore, more a 15 metre stretch of alley lined with shelves. Resolutely not a place for the intellectual, Moonlight’s focus is less on highbrow, more on new and used backpacker favourites at middling prices. Think trashy thrillers, romance, the latest Lonely Planet, all seven volumes of Harry Potter. Annoyingly, books aren’t alphabetically arranged. They may buy your used bestseller as long it’s not overstocked (e.g. ‘The Beach’) or overly dog-eared.
Shaman Bookstore
Location: 46/1 Khao San Road
Khao San Road’s biggest bookstore is dusty but well worth the sneezes, offering perhaps the best selection of used books in town. Lofty, neat shelves house everything from beach favourites, biographies and mildewed classics, to crime fiction and Bangkok expat lit. The more scholarly sections devoted to philosophy, war, history, travel writing and religion are crammed with rare or deleted Southeast Asian titles – a real treat for those interested in the region. They also stock some German, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Spanish and Italian language titles. Downsides include the slightly high prices – it is in backpacker territory after all – and the less than passionate staff. Still, delve deep for many unforeseen bargains.
Skoob Location: 2nd floor, Penny's Balcony, 522/3 Thonglor 16, Suhumvit 55
Housed in a sleek steel and glass lifestyle arcade, Penny’s Lane, this trendy independent bookshop stocks a ton of used and new books in both English and Japanese. Saunter around its wood-laminated floors and you’re sure to find a gem or two, be it fiction, history, horror, politics or self-help. Perfecting its bohemian sensibility is the imported Jazz CD section and coffee shop. |
