S3 Ep9 Edgars Lielausis, Robert’s Books (Riga, Latvia)

Welcome back to Got Books, the podcast where we talk to booksellers all around the world. My guest today is Edgars, owner of Robert’s Books, in Riga, Latvia. Robert’s Books was Riga’s first English bookshop and it has become, over the years, much more than that - a community space, a place to meet, work, relax, think, discuss, have fun, read and just be. It has also been a space for social experiments, one of its more recent ones involving a bit of a.. grey area: a sex shop inside the bookshop.

Robert’s Books first opened its doors in 2008 and since then has changed its location twice. Edgars story of how he came to own Robert’s Books is perhaps one of the most unbelievable stories I’ve come across, one fit for a novel. The father of Robert’s Books is journalist Robert Cottrell, who then gifted the shop to Edgars. Not a bad start to bookselling. Edgars was very young at the time, but he was not alone, he had a small team and together they not only kept the shop open, but they made it thrive and become the community and safe haven it is today. Here’s my conversation with Edgars.