Another Country is an English language second hand bookshop. That happens to be a library, and a meeting place for British expats to get together to “propagate the British culture” in Berlin. It also looks like a living room you could happily not leave for a good long time.
That’s what the owner, Sophie Raphaeline, calls it, and in everything I’ve read about Another 
Country, one thing is clear — it’s home to any reader that walks through the door. 20,000+ books are available for borrowing, or you can just sit down and read them in the store — is it any wonder patrons are comfortable when they walk in? Then there are the events at the store — the readings, cultural events, film night, and the delicious food it serves — which help bind together patrons into a tightly knit community. Sophie generously answered a few questions for me about Another Country.
When someone walks into Another Country, what should be their first thought?
That this isn’t Kansas, I suppose. The hardest thing is to get over to people that it’s as much a library as a bookshop and a community nexus too, so the ideal would be that the person is open to the unexpected as early as possible.
Your website describes your store as a library, British cultural centre of sorts and… pretty much just a really wonderful place to spend some time in – when you started the store, did you ever imagine that it would be all these things?
I really should rewrite the website. When I started I did have the idea of some sort of meeting place in mind. Initially though, I thought of the shop as a business and conceived of it more like something moving to a bookshop cafe. But very soon after starting, it became clear that I was minding an institution rather than a business.
Are your customers normally British expats? Or a mix?
With books it’s about 30% American, 25% German and the rest English, Australian, Canadian, 
Irish, South African etc.
What do you think that is the most unexpected thing that customers will find on your shelves?
Books that aren’t for sale.
I’m intrigued by your vast science fiction collection – what is your favourite and least favourite book in that collection?
Difficult choices. In terms of a favourite book I’d like to recommend Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-mist. The Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson is far from the worst but is probably most guilty of putting massive amounts of people off the SF & F genre by being very successfully marketed as an adult Tolkien. If I had to judge strictly by merit then the best would be Mark Geston’s Mirror for the sky and the worst Hubbard’s Mission Earth.
The store loans/sells secondhand books – but where do you find the books to fill the shelves? Online? Estate sales? Most unusual place you’ve bought books from?
We’re in an odd situation in terms of doing only English books in Germany. I’ll buy, sometimes from the UK to fill in gaps but otherwise people leaving Berlin come in and sell or donate. Because about 8% of our books are lending only, and others treated as library books, that means that the core stock doesn’t need replacing so often. Nowhere particularly unusual.
Lonely Planet named your store as one of the Top 10 bookstores in the world – what makes Another Country stand out, do you think?
Another review called us utterly strange and utterly charming. Not sure about the latter but that 
probably sums it up. Many people say they find it a magic, unique place, and many refer to it as their second home in Berlin, but then people who come into bookshops tend to romanticise a lot. Remember one academic coming in, looking round for a moment before putting his arms out and declaring This…is a bookshop! Perhaps for some it approaches an iconic ideal of a bookshop cum personal library. And there are the meals…
If you didn’t have Another Country, what would you be doing?
About 7 years ago I was given 3 years to live, (since radically revised) and sat down to work out my bucket list. Apart from a few things, I couldn’t really think of anywhere I’d rather be than here. So without it, I’d probably be starting it up again. If thats not an option, then I’d be writing heretical works of gender theory.
When customers think back to their visit to Another Country, what do you want them to remember?
Being welcome, and being in a place which stands a little apart from the usual values of this world. And maybe being in a place that could have easily come out of the pages of a book, and remembering that such places are possible.
A general caveat would be that we change a lot. We’re starting a small publishing side this year, maybe getting another shop nearby, starting more evenings and changing to be officially a not for profit concern with a prime mission to support native english language communities and culture here, and especially the fringe elements thereof (which is what we do anyway).
Store site and Facebook
I could use an afternoon in a quiet bookshop where I can leave the world outside for a while — how about you? Is Another Country what you thought it would be?
