Visiting Every Bookshop in Nova Scotia

Throughout 2023 and 2024 I visted every bookshop in Nova Scotia. This is where I’m sharing my photos and log.

Here is the list of every bookshop: Every Bookshop in Nova Scotia

progress: 100% completed

Elizabeth’s Books
Where: 134 Montague St, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0
Instagram: @elizabethsbooksns

This is a classic used bookstore: mountains of old books to sift through and everytime you spin around you realize how many books you haven’t looked at yet. In classic used bookstore fashion it also means it’s a real hit or miss situation. Last year I visited this shop and left with a stack of five or so books, this year I didn’t see anything that I wanted to bring home. It is only open in the evenings and it feels really romantic and melancholy to spend time here when the rest of the town is totally shut off. The owner insists on keeping the door propped open, even in winter, so it’s always cold in here, but that just adds to the odd vibe of this shop.

Lunenburg Bound
Where: 139 Montague St, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0
Instagram: @lunenburg.bound.books

So far, this is my favourite bookshop in Nova Scotia. It has everything I’d ever want: giant windows that let in a lot of natural light, an incredibly well curated new books section with a frequently updated new release shelf, lovely stationary, and a well priced used section. The staff are really wonderful, I often catch myself accidentally deep into a conversation with whoever is working there. I’ve visited this shop more than others because they have also hosted some great events! I always find something great here and I love the vibes and the people.

Block Shop Books
Where: 125 Montague St, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0
Instagram: @blockshopbooks

This is a sneaky store! The entrance is under a porch so you could miss it if you didn’t know it’s there but it’s truly worth a visit. It has a really great local/maritimes author section which I really appreciate and it has great graphic novel and poetry selections. My favourite part of my visit here though was their new bookshop pup! Her name is Chicka and I love her. We met her on her first day in the shop and she was already proudly coming up to say hello and then hopping up on an armchair to watch us as we circled around the shop.

Otis & Clementine’s Books
Where: 5209 St Margarets Bay Rd, Upper Tantallon, NS B3Z 1E3
Instagram: @otisbooks

From the outside Otis & Clementine’s is a bit unassuming but once you step in you’ll find a massive collection of really well curated used books. Sometimes in a used bookshop I feel like I don’t quite see anything that I’d want to take home with me but in this shop every where I turned I saw newer titles and great picks. I do love cats so the giant cat sign and Seamus the cat were certainly a big draw. I think the Classics section was particularly good!

The Curious Cat Books & Tea
Where: 195 Main St Unit 102, Antigonish, NS B2G 2B8
Instagram: @thecuriouscatantigonish

My first impression of this bookshop was “WOW! IT SMELLS GREAT!” They sell a lovely selection of teas (I think made in house!) and it gives the shop a lovely, subtle tea shop aroma. However… I got so distracted by the great book curation that it wasn’t until I was in the car driving away that I realized I forgot to look at the tea! The clerk working there was friendly and the shop was really tidy. It had a wall of used books but it was mostly new books. Sometimes when you’re in a bookshop you just get the sense that the owners have great taste and that was my feeling in here! The book selection felt really varied and interesting. Overall an awesome time!

Venus Envy
Where: 1727 Barrington St, Halifax, NS B3J 2A4
Instagram: @venusenvyhfx

Venus Envy is a bookshop and sex shop combo with a wide array of sex positive and lgbt+ titles! I’ve been to a few “bookshop/sexshop” combos and you never know what the percentage split will be. Well, this definitely qualifies as a bona fide bookshop. Lots of shelves of fiction but also non-fiction! The staff was really friendly and the building is really pretty.

Lahave River Books
Where: 3421 NS-331, LaHave, NS B0R 1C0
Instagram: @lahaveriver

This is one of the prettiest bookshops I’ve ever been wandered around. It is tough to compete with how cozy and comforting this shop is and perhaps impossible to compete with the building it is a part of. Nestled into the back of an 1800s building, you can maze through old corridors and end up in a picturesque bakery, a weirdly awesome indoor skate park, and an artists co-op shop. The view out the windows onto the river with boats passing by is beautiful… I genuinely can’t get enough of this spot. The only downfall is that the book selection is small. They do have a nice collection of new release titles and a few shelves of interesting used books but it’s not a place you can wander for hours. That being said I will always recommend this shop if you’re in the region!

King’s Co-op Bookstore
Where: 6350 Coburg Rd, Halifax, NS B3H 2A1
Instagram: @kingscoopbookstore

King’s Co-op claims on instagram that they are “Canada's hardest to find indie bookstore” and they ain’t kidding! It’s nestled into Dalhousie’s campus and nothing other than a printed out sheet tucked into the bottom of a random window that read “Halifax Reads” (which is not the name of the bookstore) and a sharpie scrawling that said “downstairs” in the top corner of that paper made me think I was in the right place. We saw an elevator and took it down and suddenly we were in the shop. It instantly feels like you’re in a basement hallway because you ARE in a basement hallway BUT! it’s a basement hallway with so many great books so you soon forget about the dingy damp university feeling. It had a lot of classics which I loved browsing through with a lot of great covers to pick from but they also had a great bunch of new release and well curated titles. If I was a student I’d be popping into this spot regularly!

Trident Bookseller & Cafe
Where: 1256 Hollis St, Halifax, NS B3J 1T6
Instagram: @trident_cafe_halifax

This is such a fun spot! It instantly felt like an old timey bookshop cafe with the black and white checkered floors and the groups of chatting customers sitting sipping coffee. As far as I can tell it was only used books (maybe a few remainder copies?) but they had a lot of shelves to go through and I had fun browsing. I definitely felt like it was 60% coffee shop and 40% bookstore but that’s not bad! It just felt more like a place to chat and get coffee than a place to read. But that being said the whole time I was browsing a man was sitting reading so intently that I kept thinking “I wish I had his attention span!” Maybe I was just there on a particularly loud day. I found some great titles and I wish I’d had time to grab a coffee.

Agricola Street Books
Where: 2684 Agricola St, Halifax, NS B3L 2Z2
Instagram: @agricolastreetbooks

Agricola Street Books opened in December of 2021, when I’d been living in Nova Scotia for a year, and I remember visiting it in the first few weeks of it being opened. It honestly felt pretty bare when I went, not many books, a lot of empty shelves, not much merchandise… but I could feel how much care had been put in to the shop. The windows, the really special lighting fixture, and the lovely wooden bookshelves. Well, two years later it is a GEM. It makes sense that it would take a used bookshop a while to get up a good stock of books but it has happened. Not only that but they also have a great array of giftcars and posters and lovely things. The North End really needed a bookshop and Agricola Street Books has delivered!

Bookmark Halifax
Where: 5686 Spring Garden Rd, Halifax, NS B3J 1H5
Instagram: @bookmarkhfx

I think that this was the first bookshop that I ever went to in Halifax. I remember thinking “HALLELUJAH.” It’s a cozy shop with a fantastic book selection in a fun part of town: what else do you need? Whenever someone visits Halifax I take them to Bookmark because I ALWAYS find something good. They are so well stocked and they do also have a lot of fun bookish things. I’ve purchased some very good pencil cases there in my day. It’s a must visit, especially as one of the few new-only bookshops. It’s also a very short walk away from the new Halifax Library that’s a total must-see.

Carrefour Atlantic Emporium
Where: 1869 Upper Water St, Halifax, NS B3J 1S9
Instagram: @carrefouratlantic

Hmmm. This is one of those shops where I think I just went in on a weird day or I don’t quite understand the stock. It’s very jam packed! It mainly featured local books which I think is a great niche: I had a friend tell me about a local author a few months ago and she was explaining to me that she couldn’t find her books stocked anywhere. I saw them at this shop! There’s also a lot of Atlantic Canada ephemera and because of its location on the waterfront near the ferry I think it’s trying to attract tourists. So it just didn’t feel like I was the target audience and that’s okay!

Black Cat Books
Where: 373 Main St, Kentville, NS B4N 1K7
Instagram: @blackcatbookstore

This is a classic bookshop. Piles of books everywhere. Hidden gems in stacks that you have to move around. A little cave like. It was great! I had a lot of fun digging through stacks, shifting books this way and that, to find some lovely gems. This is one of those bookshops where you have to go in with the right digging attitude and you’ll definitely find something interesting.

The Odd Book
Where: 112 Front St #118, Wolfville, NS B4P 1A4
Instagram: @theoddbookns

I could have spent hours in this shop. Nestled into the corner of the very lovely university town of Wolfville, this place is full to the gills with interesting and beautiful books. I found one of my now all time favourite books, a little pocket size, leather bound, gilded, edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets in a pile of pretty books. Every town deserves a shop like this.

Reader’s Haven
Where: 173 Gerrish St, Windsor, NS B0N 2T0
Facebook: Reader’s Haven

I had such a sweet time talking to the owner of this shop! I told her about my project of visiting every book shop in NS and she replied “well, I think I might have the neatest used book shop in Nova Scotia!” and I think she may be right! Mainly stocked with mass paperbacks (a lot of romance and crime) it still felt really tidy and like you could find anything you were looking for. I found a cool book about restoring old houses and a beautiful book about The Group of Seven.

MareGold Bookstore
Where: 212 St George St, Annapolis Royal, NS B0S 1A0
Website: MareGold Bookstore

When we walked into this bookshop (this was part of a big trip with my partner to hit up a bunch of bookshops at once) we instantly starting picking up neat titles. It was only fifteen minutes later when we were paying that the owner pointed out that all of the books in the shop (excluding the children’s room) are non-fiction titles. “Ohhhhh!” we both said as it clicked. I had said to Conor “This shop reminds me of a museum bookstore for some reason,” and suddenly that clicked into place. It has a great selection of titles, a robust selection of art books, and also a healthy section of herbalist books.

Mad Hatter Books
Where: 213 St George St, Annapolis Royal, NS B0S 1A0
Website: Mad Hatter Books

This shop is split into three segments: one third bookshop, one third clothing store, and one third wine bar. We had no idea about the wine bar and were there in the morning but we really want to go back on a summer evening and browse the bookshop and then enjoy a drink in one of their cute booths. The clothing does take up a large part of this bookshop but the book selection is still strong! Lots of new releases, local selections, and more. Plus it has one of the lovelist stained glass windows I’ve ever seen featuring a cat sleeping on a pile of books.

Endless Shores Books
Where: 279 Granville St, Bridgetown, NS B0S 1R0
Facebook: Endless Shores Books

This is the undisputed champion of bookstore exteriors! With the beautiful giant books on the outside of the shop and the hand painted sign above (I wish they’d replace the black and white sign on the front with a matching hand painted blue one!), and a beautifully painted staircase of book spines inside, it was genuinely exciting to drive up to this bookshop and I couldn’t resist getting a photo in front of the big books. But the joy continues as you walk inside. You’re met with a a little reading lounge, there’s a big table upstairs you can sit at, and the entire shop was really clean and tidy. I think the owner has created a really lovely spot, with rows and rows of titles, I definitely recommending driving out to this one!

Lam’s Used Book Shoppe
Where: 28 John St, Yarmouth, NS B5A 3H2

This bookshop is a complete chaos of bookish fun. The back section is largely overtaken by a massive collection of used puzzles, the front section is mainly paperback romances, but in the middle section there seems to be no organization other than “these are all books!” This is one of those shops where you have to surrender yourself to the process and lean in to the treasure hunt. And a treasure I found! I located a decent looking copy of Attachments by Rainbow Rowell which I wanted to gift to my sister-in-law for Christmas and it only cost me $3. What a deal!

Amy’s Used Books
Where: 51 S Albion St, Amherst, NS B4H 2W4
Facebook: Amy’s Used Books

This bookshop experience was very different from all the others. As you turn into the driveway for this building you are overtaken by a bunch of abandoned transport trucks who loom large over the entrance of the shop. We persevered and entered one of those bookshops where you instantly know you must submit yourself to the unbelievable quantity of books and leave your expectations at the door. Because of the sheer volume of their stock, the books are slotted in sideways into the shelves which is a shame because it makes it very hard to browse. The atmosphere here felt like stepping into a new dimension: very cold, no heating, row after row after row of books, as far as the eye could see. I found a little crossword book for my dad and when I went to pay the process took a long time while the owner manually entered my credit card information into an old credit card imprinter and then had to call someone (I think it was the credit card company). All the while we watched his old crtv, the screen static and green. Eventually the transaction went through, we left the shop, and reentered our old dimension.

Steeple Green Books
Where: 26 E Petpeswick Rd, Musquodoboit Harbour, NS B0J 2L0
Instagram: @steeplegreenbooks

No, seriously, why isn’t EVERYONE buying up abandoned churches and converting them into bookstores?! This shop also wins most pets: there’s a very friendly dog and TWO cats! I mean, it really was a heavenly place. The owner has made this shop so unbelievably cosy with a fireplace and lots of comfy places to sit. I sat down in many chairs to browse which felt so accommodating. All of the stock is remaindered books which is one of the oddities of publishing: remaindered books are new books that have been returned by bookshops when they didn’t sell. They are then marked in some way (almost always a black permanent marker line on the bottom edge) and sold at a much cheaper rate, sometimes in bulk, from cheaper distributors. This means the bookshop is full of older titles because new books are rarely circulating as remaindered copies, but it was still great to browse because of the ambiance and the great prices. This place also gets a big shout out for its fantastic a-frame sign.

Blue Griffin Books
Where: 68 Commercial St, Middleton, NS B0S 1P0
Facebook: Blue Griffin Books

I want to award “Best Book Stacks” to Blue Griffin Books which truly has some epic book piles going on. All sorts of readers came in while we were there browsing and it made my heart happy to see how a bookshop really is important to a town. Another great a-frame sign!

Good Dog Books
Where: 724 King St, Bridgewater, NS B4V 1B4
Instagram: @good.dog.books

From the brilliant minds behind Lunenburg Bound Books (unabashedly my favourite NS bookshop) comes a new endeavour, just a little higher up on the Lahave River, Good Dog Books! Let’s all agree: they take the top prize for best bookshop name. It’s a cheery, very orange, incredibly well curated bookshop. With a nice ratio of used and new books, there’s a great chance of finding something brand new that has been picked out by these wonderful booksellers or something on a super deal price from the used part of the shop. I’m excited to go back as this shop grows and expands! And when I went, they had a shelf of dog books featuring one of my all-time favourites, “Go Dog Go!”

The Book Shed
Where: 372 Nova Scotia Trunk 3, Simms Settlement, NS B0J 1T0
Facebook: The Book Shed Hubbards

What a happy establishment! Very literally a shed full of books, this type of business fills me with joy because I love when people launch projects with the things around them, on their own land, on a small scale. Everyone can start a business! Entirely filled with Atlantic Canadian books, this was a fun spot to visit.

NovelTea Bookstore and Gifts
Where: 23 Inglis Pl, Truro, NS B2N 5C6
Instagram: @novelteabookstoregifts

This is a beautiful shop! It has a lot of bookish gifts, including their own, literary themed in-house tea and candles, there was lots to look at. There was a shelf of new releases and a lot of used books to browse and I had a friendly chat with the bookseller. I brought home a copy of Western Lane by Chetna Maroo that I really enjoyed and was glad to find there!

ABC: Antiques, Books & Collectibles
Where: 12723 Peggys Cove Rd, Tantallon, NS B3Z 2N1
Facebook: ABC: Antiques, Books & Collectibles 

This compact shop packs a punch! It does exactly what it says on the tin (and also contains a lot of vintage tins): it’s a mixture of antiques and antique books. We purchased a vintage copy of a Charlie Brown anthology, a beautiful hourglass, and a brass stamp box. I really enjoyed this shop and would definitely go back.

Books Galore
Where: 23 Inglis Pl, Truro, NS B2N 5C6
Website: booksgalorenovascotia.ca

This is a beautiful shop! It has a lot of bookish gifts, including their own, literary themed in-house tea and candles, there was lots to look at. There was a shelf of new releases and a lot of used books to browse and I had a friendly chat with the bookseller. I brought home a copy of Western Lane by Chetna Maroo that I really enjoyed and was glad to find there!

Vickery House Books
Where: 83 Spring St, Parrsboro, NS B4H 1S8
Facebook: Vickery House Books

This is a testament to the beauty of mixed zoning. The couple that owns this shop also live in the old building and it has the cozy vibe of being over at someone’s house. There was a huge selection of things to look through and both my partner and me left with a nice stack. The owner was very chatty and we had a jolly time. My favourite moment was browsing through the classics section and looking to my left where his wife, the other owner, was making her morning coffee. I said “good morning” and she did the same and I loved the familiarity and kindness of them literally opening up their house to us and to everyone! They also had great signage around town (since they’re on a slightly random street) and I loved their a-frame sign too.

Shorebound Books
Where: 142 Water St, Shelburne, NS B5A 1L5
Instagram: @shoreboundbooks

I entered this bookshop on a cloud: the final bookshop of the list! Huzzah! This was a great shop to finish my mission on: with a great old building, great curation and selection, and lovely decoration and care put in to every corner, this is a lovely used bookshop. There are two cats and a record shop too. I think Shelburne is lucky to have this spot!