The familiar yet not familiar

I visited a fabulous bookshop in Helsinki, the Akateeminen Kirjakauppa (Academic Bookshop). One of the things I noticed was that there were many books in English but also other languages and that they were not all that separated, especially in the fiction areas. They mingled quite happily on the shelf and I guess reflect the multi-lingual population of Finland.

I looked for one of my favourites series, Tintin, to see if they were there and found them, in all languages, including English.

And another favourite of the kids.

The excellent bookshop also had a cafe, yes it was a Starbucks, but it had lovely, well designed but functional furniture. The shapely table below was concrete thus very stable and heat resistant. The chair was easy to clean and move but styled and very comfortable. It seemed to me that the Finns seemed to pay attention to design! FTW.