Among the pleasures of a trip to Taipei are the city's many bookshops. The first stop is usually the Eslite or Chern Piing bookshop on Dun Hua South near the corner with Renai Road. While commercial realities have tempered its vision a bit, when it launched the Eslite bookshop was the model of a globalized bookstore, with great books in their original languages, plus Chinese and or English translations, as applicable. In any case it is still one of the great bookshops anywhere, open 24 hours. See this article for more on Eslite.

Many academics remember the Dunhuang or Caves bookstore on Chungshan North. It is not as useful a place to get academic books as it used to be, though it is still the place to pick up a set of Needham's Science & Civilisation in China. Of more interest may be the Southern Sky or SMC bookshop off of Roosevelt Road, near the entrance to Taida, the National Taiwan University. They publish books on Taiwan in English and Chinese, as well as license US university press editions for the Taiwan market.

For Chinese literature in particular, one might try the new My Library of Kingstone, near the Da-an Park.

Newest superstore bookshop on the scene is Page One, in Taipei 101, which has a strong collection of English books.