Visiting Every Bookshop in Nova Scotia

In 2023 I’m attempting to visit every bookshop in Nova Scotia! On this page I’ll add photos and descriptions of every shop I visit.

This is the master list I’m using as my guide: linked here.

progress: 15/36 shops visited (42%)

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.

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.