It’s been a few years since I wrote this post to celebrate the concept of Book Villa which was a combination of library and a book shop. But while it’s sad that the Book Villa has recently gone out of business, that does not mean that are less reading books to be found in Nairobi.

5. There are book torrents..

4. There are Kindles and other book readers, tablets, and software platforms that bring new or obscure books within easy reach for those who have e-reader devices and credit cards.

3. There are regular established book shops like Prestige (Mama Ngina St), Bookpoint (Moi Ave), Text Book Centre (Sarit Centre) and BookStop (Yaya Centre)

2. The above bookshops carry many local books, but not all as there are many more rare biographies and history books in university libraries or sitting in publishers vaults. Sadly for many researchers, some new books published locally don’t contain indexes & references.

1. There are also local street vendors and book shops who collect and sell old & used books at very low prices. But searching for a specific book is not easy, and it takes many hours or days to visit all the shops. For a real treat, books vendors in India are a better experience, as a pal easily found this rare book that I had been scouring for many years.