The infamous Berlin real estate market has been the bane of many a Berlin business. Landlords can suddenly hike the rent, or even cancel or refuse to renew a contract, forcing sustainable businesses to find new homes or, even worse, to shut up shop completely. After spending 8 years building up a fantastic bookshop on Flughafen Straße in Neukölln, Orla and Dave of Curious Fox were told their rental contract wasn’t going to be renewed. All of a sudden, they needed to depart the kiez they had been an integral part of for such a long time and move to somewhere new.
Luckily, they were able to find a new premises on charming and buzzy Lausitzer Platz, and what is Neukölln’s loss is Kreuzberg’s gain. While Orla and Dave might not have originally wanted to find pastures new, they have found an amazing location with bags of character. The offering is still exactly the same – a selection of the best first- and second-hand English in Berlin, plus some lovely stationery and postcards. They also have an excellent array of locally produced zines and books.
Of course, one of the biggest selling points is still the same – Orla and Dave themselves. They’re such a friendly and warm presence (which we’re partly attributing to the fact that they’re Irish), and they are always willing to help you out and to have a chat. And if you ask very, very nicely, they might even make you a nice cup of Irish tea. If they don’t have the exact book you’re looking for, they will do their best to order it in for you. This also goes for any German language books you’d like. They also run a monthly book club on the third Thursday of every month where you can go along and get involved in the discussion on the book of the month.
Curious Fox is easily one of our favourite bookshops in Berlin, and it should be one of yours too.