How I Travel: Emma Straub Has a Favorite Bookstore in Every City

Emma Straub moves through cities the way some people move through museums or restaurants: by following the quiet gravity of a good bookstore. For the novelist and bookseller, itineraries are built less around landmarks than around shelves-new neighborhoods mapped by staff picks, local presses, and the particular way a shop smells when you first step inside. In each place she visits, there is always one store that becomes the anchor, the window into how a city reads and dreams. This is how she travels: from one doorway lined with spines to the next, collecting stories within stories, leaving each town with a new favorite place to get lost.

How Emma Straub Picks a Bookstore in Every City: Atmosphere, Curation, and Community

For Emma, stepping into a bookstore in a new city is like walking into a local living room. The first thing she notices is the atmosphere: the way the light hits the shelves, the hum of conversation, the smell of old paper or freshly brewed coffee. She gravitates toward places where nothing feels too precious, where you can sit on the floor with a stack of paperbacks and no one hovers. A good shop, in her mind, reveals its spirit in the tiniest details-handwritten shelf talkers curling at the corners, a children’s corner that looks genuinely played in, a register cluttered with bookmarks and event flyers instead of minimalist austerity.

After the vibe passes the test, she studies the curation. Emma scans front tables and staff picks to see what the store is championing, not just what’s on every bestseller list. She loves discovering books she’s never seen before, especially small-press gems and translated titles. In her notebook, she mentally scores each store by a few quiet markers:

• Risky front table: At least one book she’s never heard of.
• Thoughtful staff picks: Handwritten notes that sound like real people, not catalog copy.
• Local shelf: Authors from the region, shelved with pride.
• Kids’ section: Chaotic in the best way, with dog-eared favorites.

In every city, what ultimately makes a shop join her mental map of favorites is its sense of belonging. She looks for places where readers linger after events, rearranging chairs and trading recommendations; where the owner is as likely to suggest a novel as they are to tell you where to get the best dumplings around the corner. Her ideal bookstore folds the outside world into its aisles-posters from local protests, postcards from traveling customers, a free box on the sidewalk. By the time she leaves, she doesn’t just have a new stack of paperbacks; she has a sketch of the city’s character, drawn in spines, scribbles, and overheard conversations.

Neighborhood Guides to Straub Favorite Shops: Where to Browse, Buy, and Stay Nearby

In New York, her hometown labyrinth, Straub’s itinerary loops through cobbled blocks and corner cafés before it ever reaches a museum. On a good day in Brooklyn, she’ll start with a slow stroll down tree-lined streets toward Books Are Magic, ducking into a vintage shop for a secondhand dress that can handle both subway grit and cocktail bars. Around the corner, she keeps a mental list of tiny espresso counters, where baristas know how to recommend both a single-origin pour-over and a novella. By the time she arrives at the shelves, she’s already carrying the neighborhood with her: the smell of roasted coffee, the clatter of kids racing scooters, the hum of regulars heading to the same dog-eared paperbacks.

• Cafés: Light-filled nooks with strong coffee and stronger Wi-Fi for paging through new purchases.
• Vintage Shops: Racks of worn-in denim and silk scarves that look at home in any author photo.
• Record Stores: Quiet companions to the book hunt, where staff trade album recs for short story suggestions.
• Park Benches: Built-in reading rooms, shaded by trees and soundtracked by passing conversations.

When Straub lands in a new city, she doesn’t just look up bookstores; she plots little constellations around them. A favorite shop becomes the anchor point, with bakeries, gallery spaces, and modest boutique hotels orbiting nearby, so the day can unfold on foot. She’ll browse hardcovers until her fingers are smudged with ink, then cross the street for a slice of cake or a glass of wine, studying the locals as carefully as the text. By nightfall she’s back at a walkable hotel, reading in the lobby or by a window cracked open to the noise outside-a reminder that every good neighborhood, like every good novel, is made of a hundred overlapping stories.

Coffee, Seating, and Signature Shelves: What to Look for When Choosing a Spot to Read

Emma swears you can tell everything you need to know about a bookstore from the first three steps inside: the hiss of the espresso machine, the creak (or lack) of the chairs, and the angle of the shelves. A good reading perch is part café, part shelter, part secret corner. She looks for places where the barista already knows how to steam milk quietly, where the music fades into wordless background, and where no one looks surprised when you disappear behind a stack of hardcovers for an hour. It’s less about perfection and more about atmosphere-the subtle feeling that the room has been waiting for you and your book.

• Warm, reliable coffee that doesn’t slosh in flimsy cups
• Chairs with backs (not just stools) and tables big enough for a book and a plate
• Lighting that flatters pages instead of screens-soft lamps, not interrogation bulbs
• Quiet-but-not-silent noise levels where you can read without hearing your own breathing
• Clear sightlines to the shelves, so every stretch break becomes a browsing session

Hidden Gems and Small Press Finds: How to Discover Local Authors and Rare Editions

In every city, I start with the shelves that feel a little off the beaten path: the spinner racks near the register, the wobbling display table crammed with chapbooks, the cardboard box on the floor with a handwritten sign that reads local authors. That’s where the magic lives. Independent booksellers are matchmakers of the highest order, and if you ask them, quietly, for something “tiny and brilliant that almost no one has heard of,” they’ll often reach under the counter or into a back room. Some of the most memorable books I’ve carried home were printed on paper that still smelled faintly of the garage where they were bound, their covers designed by a cousin, their launch parties held in basements and back patios.

• Ask staff for consignment or local author sections.
• Scan community cork boards for reading series flyers.
• Follow the store’s Instagram Stories for new small-press arrivals.
• Check if they keep rare or signed editions behind the counter.

Once you start looking, a city’s underground library reveals itself everywhere. Tiny galleries tuck risograph zines beside the register; cafés keep photocopied novellas in a wire rack; festivals host pop-up stalls for presses run out of kitchens and co-ops. I like to build a private map as I walk: a poetry pamphlet from the market, a hand-stapled comic from a record shop, a linen-bound essay collection from a hotel lobby popup. These finds travel better than souvenirs-they carry the city’s accent in their margins. The trick is to stay alert to the small signals: a stack of mismatched spines, a folded flyer, a bookseller’s conspiratorial smile that says, Come over here, I’ve got something special in the back.

Practical Tips for Traveling with Books: Packing, Shipping, and Space Saving Tricks

If your suitcase is basically a mobile library, a little strategy keeps your spine (and your luggage wheels) intact. I treat my carry-on like a curated shelf: one slim novel for the plane, one chunkier book that can last a whole trip, and one wildcard I might trade or gift along the way. Tuck hardcovers tight against the suitcase back, then cushion them with clothes to prevent battered dust jackets. Paperbacks slip perfectly into packing cubes-think of them as soft bookends that stop everything from sliding into chaos.

• Choose formats wisely: Mix light paperbacks with a single, beloved hardcover.
• Use books as structure: Lay them flat at the base to create a sturdy layer for folded clothes.
• Protect the favorites: Wrap treasured editions in a T‑shirt or scarf instead of bubble wrap.
• Keep one within reach: Slide your current read into the plane-seat pocket of your backpack.

For truly ambitious readers, the mail becomes your secret luggage. Many indie shops will ship your stack home so you don’t have to drag it through three train transfers. I’ll often buy one book to read on the spot and send the rest ahead, like literary postcards to my future self. If you’re hopping between cities with a bookstore in each, rotate: finish a book, leave it at a hostel shelf or with a new friend, then adopt a fresh one at the next shop. When space is tight, slip an e-reader into the mix but let one physical book be your daily anchor to whatever city you’re in-dog-eared, coffee-stained, and quietly mapping your travels in its margins.

Timing Your Visit Around Events: Author Readings, Signings, and Community Nights

Some people check tour schedules for their favorite bands; I check the events calendar for the local indie bookstore. Before I even book a hotel, I’m scrolling through listings of author readings, launch parties, and community nights. The secret is to treat a bookstore like a tiny, ever-changing festival: one night it’s a quiet temple, the next it’s standing room only, packed with readers clutching dog-eared paperbacks and questions they’ve been saving for years.

To make the most of it, I’ll usually build a loose itinerary around what’s happening on the store’s docket that week. A Tuesday night reading can anchor the whole day: coffee in the morning, getting lost in a new neighborhood by afternoon, then showing up early enough to snag a front-row seat between the mystery shelves and the staff picks. I love when a shop layers in small rituals-signing lines winding past the zines, a bell over the door chiming with each late arrival, staff passing around a hand-lettered mic schedule like a secret map.

• Arrive early to browse staff recommendations before the crowd.
• Stay late to eavesdrop on the post-event book debates.
• Bring a tote you won’t mind overstuffing with surprises.
• Check social media for last-minute pop-up signings.

Build Your Own Bookstore Itinerary: Mapping a Literary Route for Weeklong Trips

For Emma, a weeklong trip begins with a map that’s more ink than asphalt. Before flights are booked or hotel confirmations hit the inbox, she’s already charting a path from one set of shelves to the next, tracing how a city’s stories spill out of its bookstores. Think of your travel days as chapters: morning in a sunlit corner shop with strong coffee, afternoon in a labyrinthine secondhand trove, evening in a sleek indie space hosting a reading. Plot those stops on your calendar the way you’d structure a novel-slow build, rising action, quiet denouement in a late-night shop that never seems to close.

• Start with a theme: Vintage mysteries, translated fiction, local zines-let your current obsession decide which storefronts make the cut.
• Layer neighborhoods: Cluster shops by district so you stroll from one to the next, letting cafés, parks, and record stores become unscripted supporting characters.
• Leave blank pages: Keep at least one afternoon unplanned for the serendipity of the handwritten “Used & Rare” sign down a side street.
• Balance formats: Mix sprawling flagships, tiny specialty nooks, and community bookstores where staff picks read like love letters.

The Conclusion

In the end, Straub’s itineraries are less about pins on a map and more about the pages she turns along the way. Her favorite bookstores double as memory palaces: each one holding a moment, a conversation, a feeling she can revisit long after the trip is finished.

Travel, for her, isn’t a break from reading but an extension of it-another chapter, another setting, another cast of characters behind every counter and cash register. And whether it’s a cramped shop on a side street or a sunlit emporium that takes up a whole block, she approaches them all with the same quiet intention: to leave with a book in her bag and a new place on her personal atlas of stories.

You don’t have to be a novelist to follow her lead. The next time you arrive somewhere unfamiliar, you might skip the souvenir stand and look for the nearest shelf of paperbacks instead. If Straub is right, a city’s stories live not just in its streets and landmarks, but in the bookstores that wait patiently for someone to wander in, ask for a recommendation, and begin.