Book Stores #3 – Waanders in de Broeren

I remember when this book store was just called Waanders and established in a different street within the centre of Zwolle. While the store wasn’t nessecarily small, it didn’t have a particular feel to it. I remember it being dark. Nothing really stood out to me and I did not enjoy visiting it.

It seems that the owners had noticed this themselves, as their website suggests in the history section. In 2013 they moved their store a few streets and into the Broederkerk (Brother Church). Like the Dominicanenkerk in Maastricht, this book store moved into a church.

Now the feel of the book store is quite different. When you enter the store you will find a small restaurant to lunch on your right side once you walk past the magazines. It looks nice, but we have never eaten there.

To your left you will find the book store. As this is a former church it has a high ceiling. At the sides there are stairs to go upstairs. This leaves the middle of the store feeling very open. The shelves that aren’t at the walls are kept low as well to add to this effect together with the use of the colour white in places.

When you walk into the direction of the book store you will find stacks of books laying on a block in the middle  with at the back of that a few small shelves. On the right the walls are covered with taller book shelves. On this side of the store you can find almost all genres like Dutch fantasy, and more to the back the English section. But before you reach that section you can see a grave on the floor and a sort of grave tile on the wall.

At the English section there is the possibility to go upstairs where you can find more non-fiction books. If you move towards the other end of the store from the English section you will find the young adult section and behind that the childrens section. The rest of the downstairs left side has mostly gift ideas, notebooks, cards and so on.

Midway to the left side you can go upstairs. Unlike the right side, this side has more levels that holds comics, cd’s, dvd’s but also older books. From the higher levels you have a great view on the entire store. They also have these shelves as you go up the stairs. A shame they don’t hold more books, but more gift ideas. It looks very nice though.

Overal I think this store is clearly an improvement from the book store Waanders used to have. While I do feel that the church now feels a tad too modern for me a times, it certainly is still a great sight to behold, and very different from the one in Maastricht. Unfortunately I do think their selection is somewhat lacking when it comes to young adult and English. I don’t often find new releases. And when it comes to their gift items I wish there were more bookish items and book marks present.

Still, I enjoy visiting this book store whenever we go to Zwolle.