City-centre store with 4 floors, café, large English section

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / EDITOR’S NOTEPAD – Geneva has just been endowed with its own version of a mega bookstore, with the grand opening this weekend of the new Payot in the city centre.

The bookstore closed two shops, at Chantepoulet and rue du Marché, combining them to make a new four-floor store with a café and a Nature & Découvertes shop (Payot’s fifth for this franchise, in French-speaking Switzerland), at rue de la Confédération 7. The English bookstore Off the Shelf merged with Payot in 2014 and the result today is a spacious area with a wealth of books in English, and of course in French with sections for other languages.

I visited the new store Monday in preparation for a book-signing I will be doing there Thursday, 18:30-20:00, for my popular Swiss wine book, Vineglorious! Switzerland’s Wondrous World of Wines. Put it on your calendar now – but if you miss it, I will be doing another signing 11 April.

These are part of several events during the month-long grand opening.

Payot is not only bucking the US trend away from mega bookstores, which suffered from rapid expansion just as the e-book market began to grow, but it is acknowledging the specialness of Geneva, a small city with a relatively large international population that is well educated, well traveled and has intellectual leanings.

For those worried that e-books are hurting the printed book business, Payot sells both, a sign that the two approaches to reading can co-exist. The store also ships free of charge within Switzerland.

The new store will delight any booklover, of any age. The English section is large and airy, and happily close to the coffee bar. The ground floor has a good collection of travel literature and guides and a large number of books on Switzerland and Geneva.

The fun surprise for me was the basement, where the “Nature & Découvertes” shop within a store is housed. I had no idea what to expect and I won’t spoil the fun, but I came close to leaving with a kit for homemade artisanal beer, a Panama hat, Alpine herbal soap and a starter set for kitchen herbs in the “terroir” corner.