Why Antoine, Halabi, and Aaliya's Books still matter
Lebanon publishes more books per capita than almost any Arab country and reads fewer of them than its grandparents did. The arithmetic is depressing and the response, as always, has come from the booksellers themselves. Antoine's flagship in Hamra has held its corner for sixty years. Halabi in Achrafieh quietly stocks the country's best Arabic literature section. Aaliya's Books, the youngest of the three, has built a reading culture out of thin air in a Gemmayze garden.
None of them are getting rich. All of them are doing the country a service the country doesn't entirely deserve. Buy a book this week. Buy it from one of them.
