Prague bookshop on Wenceslas Square (Vodickova street), run by Academia, the publishing house of the Czech Academy of Sciences; a two-level store with a cafe, strong on Czech history, art and architecture titles plus a foreign-language section.
Best for Czech scholarship and translated literature
Academia Bookshop trades from Wenceslas Square in Prague's New Town, at an address on Vodickova street just off the square. It operates under Academia, the publishing house of the Czech Academy of Sciences, headquartered at Vodickova 40 - meaning the shop is a retail outlet of an academic-institution publisher rather than an independent bookseller. Inside, it's a two-level shop known for a cafe built into the space. The selection leans toward Czech-interest subjects plus a notably strong English-language and foreign-language section.
Book Therapy selects illustrated books and reading material for its Vinohrady boutique in Prague and online shop. Its catalogue covers design and architecture as well as photography and fashion. Shoppers can browse the selection online before visiting the shop at Římská 35 or arranging collection there.
Best for Design and illustrated books at a Vinohrady boutique
Book Therapy is explicit that it is not a bookshop. It calls itself a place for choosing books that make sense, as a gift, as a gesture, as your offline therapy, and that distinction shapes everything reaching the shelves.
It does not sell thousands of titles. Each one is chosen on content, on visual quality and on whether it will still hold up in a decade. The shop works with publishers including Assouline, Taschen and Phaidon, houses it credits with defining contemporary visual culture.
There is no attempt to compete on catalogue breadth or on bestseller charts, because the shop was founded as an alternative to the mass bookseller. Its own line on this is blunt: we do not sell everything, it says, we sell only what we stand behind.
For a lot of customers that makes it the safe place to choose a gift. Two boutiques let the physical quality of a book be judged in person, and they are meant to be used alongside the online shop rather than instead of it.
Prague's largest bookshop, a four-floor flagship of the 13-shop Luxor/Neoluxor chain on Wenceslas Square, stocking books, maps, and stationery in Czech, English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian, plus a cafe.
Best for Four floors of multilingual books, maps, stationery, records and a cafe on Wenceslas Square
Palac knih Luxor - now generally branded Neoluxor - is the flagship location of a Prague bookselling chain that operates 13 shops across the city. The flagship, on Wenceslas Square in Prague's Nove Mesto district, is spread across four floors and is described in travel and local-business sources as the largest bookstore in the Czech Republic. It carries fiction, non-fiction, travel guides, and maps across multiple languages - Czech, English, French, Spanish, German, and Russian - along with a substantial English-language section, stationery, souvenirs, and a vinyl records section. A small cafe on the first floor serves coffee and wine to browsing customers.
PageFive is a Prague bookshop and publisher specialising in visual culture, from art books to small-run printed work. Its shelves combine international publications with Czech books and magazines as well as prints and independently produced zines. The project also includes a risograph studio and MandlGallery, extending its publishing work into printing and exhibitions.
Best for Art books, zines and prints in Prague
PageFive works as both a Prague bookshop and a publisher, with visual culture running through its printed material. Art books share the range with magazines and zines, alongside prints that can be considered as objects in their own right. The stock combines international publications with Czech work, rather than treating local publishing as a separate souvenir category.
Its involvement in making books gives the project a role beyond stocking titles from other publishers. PageFive also operates a risograph studio and MandlGallery, connecting printing with a programme of exhibitions. Those activities provide context for the kinds of paper-based work sold through the shop.
For a visitor, the useful first choice is between a publication to read and a print to keep or display. A magazine or small-run zine offers a different format from a substantial art book, even when the subject overlaps. The range therefore rewards attention to the publication itself and the people making it. Particular titles change, but the relationship between bookselling and independent production remains the defining reason to consider this shop.
A stationery shop selling Czech-designed paper goods, conceptual products, and gifts. It received Designblok Store of the Year 2011 and Czech Grand Design Store of the Year 2012.
Best for Czech-designed paper goods and conceptual gifts
Independent English-language bookshop founded in Prague in 2002 in a former brothel in Vrsovice, later relocated near Charles Bridge in Mala Strana; over 20,000 new and used titles and a cellar events space.
Best for English new used literary events.
Shakespeare and Sons opened in Prague in 2002, in a building in the Vrsovice neighborhood that had previously been a brothel. As its book collection grew, the shop relocated to Mala Strana, close to Charles Bridge, where it now operates as one of the largest independent English-language bookstores in the city, stocking more than 20,000 new and used titles. The split-level space includes a historic basement cellar used for events - art exhibitions, live music, open mic nights. The business later expanded to Berlin, opening in Prenzlauer Berg in 2011 before settling into a Friedrichshain location on Warschauer Strasse in 2014. In Prague, the bookshop also operates alongside Fine Bagels, a bagel cafe run under the same roof.
Independent English- and French-language bookshop in Prague's Vinohrady district, the second location of Shakespeare & Sons, founded by expats in 2003, stocking over 20,000 new and used titles with a reading area and special-order service.
Best for English fiction events coffee Vinohrady.
Shakespeare and Sons is an independent bookshop founded by expatriates in Prague in 2003, now with two locations; the Vinohrady branch operates from Korunni 1300/65, Prague 2. The shop stocks more than 20,000 new and used titles, primarily in English with a French-language section. Regular imports from the US and UK keep the English-language stock current, and the shop takes special orders for titles not already on the shelves. The Vinohrady location keeps the character of the original store: shelves lined with wine bottles and a reading area with armchairs.
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