Cărturești Bookstore

When I first arrived in Oradea, I knew little about the city. Fortunately, I found a community with similar interests to mine. I love Japanese culture, so when I learned that there is a bookshop that sells manga. I wanted to visit it as soon as possible. I first learned about Japanese culture when I started watching anime. I adore their mythology and how their culture is full of cats. Cărturești is a bookshop where you can find various books from a seemingly infinite selection. When I visited the shop, I found manga that I liked, and even books that I was unable to find even in antique shops, like H.P. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon and other stories of his. One can also find tabletop games at Cărturești, like What do you Meme, which is a pretty good game to play with friends, and a more well-known game that they sell is Cards Against Humanity. Another thing they sell is discs from widely known bands, Guns N’ Roses, and Queen, and their merchandise can be bought there as well.

They have a lot of products for cat lovers like me, such as mugs and coasters with cats on them. They also keep up with fashion. When Fortnite was popular, they sold their merch, and when Among Us was the number one video game, they sold little figurines. They also have posters from video games, and anime, and sell Displates as well, which are high-quality, magnetic, metal posters. My favourite thing about the bookshop is that they have so much stuff, that when you enter you will likely find yourself trying to decide on what to buy for 2-3 hours straight. But if you are searching for Hungarian books, you might not be in the best place because they mostly sell books in English and Romanian. In the vicinity of the bookshop, you can find a cinema and a lot of restaurants as well. I highly recommend the Orange Chicken and Shrimps from Noodle Pack because they are very tasty. It is true that it is not close to the centre, but it is easily accessible by tram or taxi, and it does not cost more than 15RON (or 3EUR).

By András Voloncs

Photos: Tamás Petrus and Tamás Orosz