Oh gods, alright. Of course Livraria Lello would be the one to have it. I wonder if they were trying to get rid of it?
I actually would like to talk about Lello and their relationship with Harry Potter and also just ask you to visit the bookstore.
So, anyway, Lello opened in 1906 in Porto, North of Portugal.
JK. Rowling lived in Porto for a bit in the 90âs, where she first started writing the Harry Potter series. It was said she might have frequented it and some important stairs from the book were based on Lelloâs stairs. In fact: The book release of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child happened in Lello.
What this meant is that this bookstore ended up having to fight to remain a bookstore. There are so many tourists, a lot of them that only wanted to look at it because it was Harry Potter related somehow and buy nothing. There were (and still are) insane queues to enter the bookstore.
Lello, who wasnât particularly interested in becoming a Harry Potter museum, ended up having to make a system where people have to pay to enter. If you buy a book that goes above the price you paid for the ticket, the money you paid will be deducted from the book price.
I can tell from going there fairly frequently that they try to be less connected to Harry Potter as possible if they can manage. Yeah they have the books for sale but they also have a plethora of books and their own merchandise to choose from.
Despite JK. Rowlingâs involvement with the bookstore, in the Portuguese Wikipedia page, even in the part about the famous writers that went there, there isnât a single mention of her. Zero. Not in the history nor anywhere else. Itâs beautiful.
Last time I went they had an exhibition about JosĂŠ Saramagoâs work (portuguese author who won the Nobel Prize) and on the upper side of the stairs had an enormous collection of winners of the Nobel Prize and authors Lello concidered had the quality to also have won (it the Nobel Prize existed when they were alive) and authors that might win.
Itâs quite interesting because all was very thought out and you had a whole reason as to why those books were there. Me and my mother ended up chatting for a long while with one of the bookshop employees (they have a lot of young employees btw) and we even ended up chatting with other foreigners that went there shopping.
Also, did I mentionthe bookshop is gorgeous?
As are their book editions (my English edition of Tom Sawyer I bought there)
Have also a photo of the bookstore from 1906 :)
So, if you go there, please donât go because of Harry Potter. And please donât shit on it because of Harry Potter too. Itâs a very good bookstore and it deserves recognition, but not from there.
