Europe travel guide

Book buying boom in Barcelona

Barcelona book shops are enjoying a spectacular year as reading, once very much a minority interest across Spain, is now big business. Once the country with the lowest level of book reading in Europe, Spaniards are now reading like never before.

There have been some massive hits in the past year. El Juego del Angel, soon to be published in English as The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, came out in April with a print run of 1million. Reports say nearly all that million have been sold. English author Ken Follet has enjoyed success too with over a million of his World Without End (in Spanish El Mundo sin Fin) sold so far, helped by it being partly set in Vitoria, the Basque capital.

There are some superb book stores in Barcelona, some offering a wide range of English titles. The stalls on the Ramblas are a good starting point while the city's largest book store, Casa del Libre in Eixample (Pg de Gracia 62) is well worth searching out. 

This article was written for TravelSavvy Europe by Bob Cartwright. If you know of an interesting European travel related news story, please get in contact.