Book hunting in St Petersburg fails in two predictable ways. You save the famous book fair for the evening and arrive to find it shut, because it keeps market hours, not shop hours. Or you buy five art albums, and your suitcase is suddenly ten kilos heavier than the airline allows.
Dom Knigi in the Singer building
The main address is Nevsky Prospekt 28, the former Singer company building on the corner of the Griboedov Canal. The St Petersburg House of Books occupies three floors, holds well over a hundred thousand titles and is open daily from 9:00 to 23:00 (+7 812 667-84-25). The hall itself is worth the visit: a vaulted ceiling with stained glass, green walls, a mosaic floor and a café inside. Closing at eleven makes it the only sensible option after a long museum day. The chain also has a branch in Kronstadt at Petrovskaya Street 16/2, open 9:00 to 21:00, and an online shop that delivers across Russia.
Independent shops
Independent bookshops here work more like clubs. Podpisnye Izdaniya sits at Liteyny Prospekt 57 and is the best known of them, with its own publishing house and constant book launches; check its hours before you go, as they shift with the season.
Vse Svobodny is at Nekrasova Street 23, open 11:00 to 22:00 every day with no break (+7 911 977-4047). Older guidebooks still send readers to a courtyard on the Moika Embankment, so trust the shop's own address. Its selection leans towards humanities non-fiction, popular science and counterculture.
Poryadok Slov stands at Fontanka Embankment 15, open 11:00 to 22:00 Monday to Thursday and 12:00 to 22:00 Friday to Sunday, with a strong film and philosophy section plus a lecture hall. Its second shop, P.S., hides inside the Pushkinskaya-10 art centre, entrance from Ligovsky Prospekt 53, daily 12:00 to 21:00.
