Over the weekend, I went on a stroll through town and once again lamented the fact that the bookshop closed down.

Well, technically, they moved from one shopping centre to another 10 minutes down the road, but they might as well be different stores now.

The shopping mall it used to be at, the Clemens Galerien, is being abandoned slowly but surely after only 15 years. Most of the shops are now empty and being turned into an “urban outlet centre”. The bookshop used to span two floors, it was accessible from the High Street, it was spacious and welcoming and had a few benches and a coffee machine in the corner with the floor to ceiling windows.

I used to go there after school as it was on the way home and I’d get a coffee or hot chocolate to warm me up while browsing for what I wanted to read next.

The new store is just one long tube, harsh white walls and dark shelves, the light too bright and the shelves and display tables way too close together. There’s no coffee machine anymore, no space to browse and no benches.

So I imagined what my dream bookstore would be like. If I was given money with the strict instruction to open a bookstore in a college town, what would I do with that store?

Well, imagine this:

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