Hong Kong’s best bookstores

With the likes of Page One and Popular closing down over the years, Bookazine is now one of Hong Kong’s last remaining English-language bookstore chains. With a number of locations across Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and Discovery Bay, it’s fairly easy to find a Bookazine branch for all your paperback, birthday cards, or funky gifting needs. The Prince’s Building store is our favourite, though we’ve also been known to nab the window bay seat in the IFC location quite a lot as well.

We still haven’t quite figured out if it’s pronounced ‘es-leet’ or ‘es-light’, but our confusion doesn’t change our absolute love for this bookstore one bit. The Taiwanese mega bookstore is housed in three storeys of Hysan Place, with a dizzying array of Chinese and English books. What’s more, Eslite also stocks plenty of well-designed lifestyle products, and lovers of coloured pens and journaling knick-knacks will also be glad to know that their Hysan flagship has an entire floor dedicated to stationery. Apart from their Causeway Bay location, we’re also particular fans of the Tai Koo branch, which contains several cafés to relax in should you feel tired.

Being a little more out of the way than the other bookstores on this list means that you’re less likely to encounter huge weekend crowds at Books & Co. The folks at Books & Co are huge bookworms and will always welcome readers to pop along to the shop, pick a title off a shelf or one of the overflowing stacks on the ground, and dive into it to escape reality for a couple of hours. Buy yourself a cup of joe before you sit down and it’s a whole day gone.

Under the same management as Swindon Books and Hong Kong Book Centre, Kelly & Walsh is basically a fancier, more upscale version of the former two. Rather than fiction or young adult, this is a great spot to pick up special interest or coffee table books ranging from art and design to business and travel. Since their Landmark location shut, Kelly & Walsh can be found exclusively in Pacific Place.

Located right next to Hong Kong’s famous arthouse cinema Broadway Cinematheque, this chill bookshop is a must-visit for book and film lovers. Although they do offer a range of literature options, Kubrick stocks more books to do with art and design, gender studies, travel, cookery, specialty magazines, and – in case the name didn’t already tip you off – films. You’ll also find DVDs, movie soundtracks, film posters, and vinyl records covering the best of the art worlds. The bookshop and adjoining café also regularly host events featuring local writers and filmmakers, so look out for those.

Look no further than Lok Man for rare literary treasures in Hong Kong. Housing a meticulously collected range of first editions and important folios, this is the place to pick up signed novels and antique books across all genres including classic literature, history, and economics, as well as rare illustrated maps. The interior of the shop, replete with plush armchairs, looks akin to a library from a millionaire’s mansion – there’s no place quite like Lok Man to make you feel like a learned Victorian scholar reading in their estate’s library.

More into comics than novels? We’ve got you covered. Make a trip to Mong Kok’s Sino Centre and you’ll be rewarded with one of the city’s biggest collections of manga. Spread across several floors, each shop has its own specialty ranging from brand-new releases to second-hand material, and trending series to obscure volumes. Unfortunately, the majority of these tiny stores only stock Chinese language manga, so if you can’t read Traditional Chinese, then you’ll have to find another alternative. Do a round of all the stores first before making any purchases in order to find the best bargain.