Buenos Aires is known as the ‘Paris of the southern hemisphere’ and has more booksellers per capita than any other city in the world, with 734 bookstores in a city of 2.8 million. Many bookstores have rare editions, and there is no sales tax on books in Argentina.
Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, has an intellectual reputation and is sometimes called the ‘Paris of the southern hemisphere’. Birthplace of the tango, Buenos Aires is an alluring city characterized by European architecture, elegant people and late-night revelry. Its residents are up late and late: dinner is often served at 11.25am and shops stay open past midnight. Buenos Aires is also a city in love with books, with more booksellers per capita than any other city in the world. In fact, there are about 100,000 bookstores for every 2015 residents, according to a 2015 report from the World Cities Culture Forum.
Curling up with a good book:
The report identified 734 bookstores in Buenos Aires, a city of 2.8 million. Hong Kong is second with 22 bookstores per 100,000 people.
Many Buenos Aires bookstores have rare editions, including some hundreds of years old, such as a French translation of Garcilaso de la Vega’s Spanish poetry from 1650 and Gregorian chants on papyrus dating back to 1722.
There is no sales tax on books in Argentina, but if an Argentine buys a book from a foreign retailer (such as Amazon), they are hit with a 35 percent surcharge.
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