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A secondhand bookstore nestled below the hustle and bustle of city life.
Ignoring the noise echoing from the busy street, the warm yellow light emanating from the shop led me into a space filled with pages stained with the passage of time.
Inside, wooden shelves filled with books sit silently, waiting to be discovered by new owners. The books are arranged by genre, by size (small, medium, large), and by condition (new or used). There's no sense of clutter often found in other used bookstores in Saigon; everything here is neat and orderly, as if each book has its own designated place. On top of the neatly stacked books, a calico cat sleeps, seemingly oblivious to everything around it.
Ba Tan Bookstore is located in alley 451 Hai Ba Trung Street.
The shop was almost always full of customers. They would walk in, choose books that caught their eye, sit down on the floor, lean against the shelves, and read for a while before deciding whether to buy them or not. That atmosphere reminded me of my childhood, saving up my spare change, running to the used bookstore near school to rent a comic book, and then lying on the floor devouring it.
That feeling of pure joy and exhilaration, strangely enough, is very difficult to find when you're older, when you have enough money to buy new books but no longer have enough time to read at your leisurely pace as before.
Customers can sit and read books right there before deciding which one to buy.
The reading space extends out into an alleyway.
While chatting with a bookstore employee and browsing some Eastern literature, I learned about Sam - Art Book & Coffee located at 218 Nguyen Thai Binh Street, Bay Hien Ward (formerly Tan Binh District).
Visiting on a weekday evening, I ordered a coffee and stepped into a reading space dedicated to art, design, and photography books. Unlike Bá Tân, there weren't many books here, but they were carefully selected for their content and age, arranged on 3-4 wooden shelves and hangers.
A coffee shop combined with a reading space at the branch on Nguyen Thai Binh Street.
I found books on history, culture, and philosophy published decades ago, their covers yellowed and peeling, bearing the scars of being forgotten amidst the flow of the internet, social media, and e-books.
Two spaces, two different locations in the city, yet sharing the same rhythm. Old books, art books, popular books, or collectibles are all placed within the same framework: to allow readers to rediscover a slow, deliberate connection with words.
The person who chose to go with the old books has gone through many changes of location.
The owner of those bookstores is Le Ba Tan, a man who once taught history but quietly left the classroom before he could fully answer his own questions. In the years that followed, he tried his hand at various jobs to make a living: telesales, selling airline tickets, tutoring, selling kimchi… each job was like a short, hurried detour, before his life finally settled down with old books.
The opportunity came quite by chance. A friend was moving house and gave him a few bookshelves. He tried selling them on his personal page and they all sold out. Then he started selling again. As the old books gradually found new readers, he realized he was facing a quiet but persistent need: people still need old books, books that have stood the test of time.
Mr. Le Ba Tan - owner of Ba Tan used bookstores and also one of the well-known figures in the book business.
In 2016, he completely stopped his other jobs to pursue his passion for books. He visited used bookstores throughout the city, learning how to classify, organize, and price books – learning the trade by standing amidst the dust of books and the smell of old paper. For Tan, "history is not just an old profession, but the foundation for reading everything else: philosophy, literature, culture, religion, music," he said.
Mr. Tan opened his first shop in District 2, then moved to District 1 with a book cafe model. After that came several closures and reopenings, interruptions due to the pandemic and many other unnamed reasons. At times, it seemed like everything had come to a standstill, but the books didn't.
In August 2022, Mr. Tan established his shop at alley 451 Hai Ba Trung Street with "Ba Tan - Used Book Library," and then slowly expanded to other locations in District 3, District 5, Thu Duc, down to Can Tho, and up to Thanh Hoa. The shops are divided according to specific book categories: one focusing on religious books, another on self-selection books and books sold by weight; one preserving antique and rare books; and another serving the general reading needs of local residents, becoming the only used bookstore amidst stalls filled with the fresh scent of new paper.
Each location focuses on specific types of books, with Sam - Art Book & Coffee specializing in art books.
While many bookstores have shifted to online sales via websites and social media to keep up with the fast pace of the digital age, Mr. Tan focuses on training his staff to have book knowledge so they can communicate and advise customers directly, thereby promoting a return to the traditional form of buying and selling: customers come to the store, choose books in person, and have a space to sit and read. This approach aims to encourage a return to the familiar form of buying books from the past, where purchasing books was not just a transaction, but a slow pause in the city.
Mr. Tan not only sells books but also hopes to "resell" memories of old reading habits, encouraging people to buy and read directly on-site instead of focusing on online business.
Mr. Tan also regularly organizes offline reading sessions, workshops, develops community reading rooms, and offers gifts to customers who reach 100 hours of reading, giving readers reasons to stay longer with books and with each other. In the midst of a bustling city, these old bookstores become places that preserve a once familiar reading habit: coming to the store, flipping through books by hand, and dedicating time to reading.
Leaving Ba Tan's shop, I brought back an old book to Saigon with a dedication from Mr. Tan – a small milestone in my journey to rediscover old books in the heart of the city.
