Finding English Book Stores Overseas

I had a few great questions from Nick this week. Nick is leaving for a ship in two weeks and I wish him well. Nick asks:

What are bookstores like overseas? Can you get English books?

It can be difficult to find English book stores overseas. I remember feeling like I’d discovered a new continent when I found a 7 story English book store in Athens. I also remember finding one in Norway that was beautiful. These stores are rare treasures, indeed, and when you find them you should stock up.

There are also onboard “libraries” for the crew. It’s basically a leave-a-book, take-a-book kind of thing. There’s a passenger library as well, and musicians were allowed to check books out of there on my old ship. Now, as a guest performer, I’m allowed to check books out of the library, but I don’t have any access to the crew library (if there even is one on this ship).

Both the crew library and passenger library were stocked full of crappy books on my first ship, so there wasn’t much help there. Often the crew library was full of terrible paperback romance novels that were read primarily by English-as-a-second-language crew members. See Spot. See Spot run. You get the idea.

I always travel with a few books with me, no matter where I’m going. I recommend bringing a few paperbacks with you when you go, for sure. If there are any music books you’re planning on working on when your there – maybe the Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrations book, or the Mark Levine piano book – bring that with you. You would have a real hard time finding something like that.