Flavorwire – an online culture magazine – keeps an updated list with the 20 most beautiful bookstores in the world. In this exclusive list appears VVG Something, a small Taiwanese store located in Taipei’s centric district of Zhongxiao Dunhua.
This bookstore is hidden in a quiet alley, not far from the hustle and bustle of Zhongxiao East Road consumerism frenzy, surrounded by cafés and by the greens of the plants covering the nearby facades.
Inside the bookstore, a rather small space compared to the rest of the bookstores in Flavorwire’s list, books are stacked in shelves covering walls, and also in a big table in the center of the room. Do not expect to find any kind of classification or order in the distribution of the books. Fashion, kitchen, architecture, photography, travel guides… all these sections are mixed into one big mess, but if you spend some time diving among the books, you can find real treasures. Here books seem to be curated under a cuteness or oddness criteria. All books available in VVG Something were either published with a beautiful design, or their content is somehow “special”, like the small treasure that I found and – I must confess – I couldn’t help but buying.
This is an endearing and funny photography book published by a granddaughter who took pictures of her grandma – a 80 year old lady living in the Japanese countryside – and her life with her cute heterochromious cat. This is only one of the many Japanese books available in VVG. The bookstore also has a selection of beautiful stationery products.
Without a doubt, VVG Something is one more of Taipei’s hidden treasures, worth the time to visit, specially for the bookworms. Besides this bookstore, VVG Group has expanded their business recently and they also have a café next to the bookstore and a restaurant in the remote location of Yangmingshan.
