Bookstore on Santorini

In Oia, Santorini you can find this amazing bookstore, Atlantis Books. The name comes from the fact that there's an archaeological site on Santorini called Akrotiri and it's rumored to be where Atlantis sank when the volcano near this island erupted.

You walk down their steps and pass a napping kitty and perhaps their bookstore dog. The store is down into the ground and more like a cave than anything else.

The bookshelves are packed and go to the ceiling. There's different language areas so they had books in Greek, English, Spanish, French, etc. There's also a lot of suggestion cards about what the staff enjoyed on the shelves and on the tables.

They even have a number of first edition books. For example they had this copy of The Little Prince, one of my sister's favorites. They also had a first edition of Catcher in the Rye. These are of course much more expensive.

We used this time to get a grad-school graduation present for my stepsister and a couple books for my other sisters.

The staff was so incredibly helpful in suggesting what would be good for my poetry loving stepsister and what books to narrow down my selection to. They responded without fail to our every question and were so incredibly knowledgable about their stock.

I wish I'd taken a picture of it, but they'd painted a timeline of their bookstore on the walls. The owners weren't Greek and when they visited Santorini and saw it had no bookstore, it inspired them to open their own. They've been there for a few years now and appear to be successful.

My own two books were: Zorba The Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. However since we spent more than $50 at their store, we received a free copy of The Girls by Emma Cline. They stamp the inside cover of your books as well so you can remember where exactly you bought it!

This was one of the best bookstores I've ever been to and a highlight of our Santorini trip!