The German government has honored small bookstores with high standards with the tenth German Bookstore Award. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) awarded the "Excellent Place of Culture" seal of approval to 118 bookshops in Frankfurt (Oder).
In the "Best Bookshops" category, this year's award and a prize of 25,000 euros each went to Buchladen 46 in Bonn, Buchpalast in Munich and Robert Philipp Buchhandlung in Kamenz, Saxony.
Since 2015, the German government has been awarding the German Bookstore Prize to small, owner-managed bookstores that offer a sophisticated literary range or innovative business models. The prize, which is endowed with prizes totaling 850,000 euros, is awarded in three categories to stores with an annual turnover of less than one million euros in the past three years.
Roth said: "Books give us knowledge and experience. They not only protect us from monotony and boredom, but above all from one-dimensionality, narrow-mindedness, bias and intolerance. This makes booksellers the natural allies and guarantors of the free word."
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