Less than a five-minute walk away from another Prenzlauer Berg’s bookstore Prior & Mumpitz on Dunckerstraße there’s Buchhandlung Moby Dick on Stargarder Straße, a street full of bars and restaurants – and most importantly, my favorite ice-cream in the neighbourhood.

Moby Dick makes this street complete: apart from everything else, you can also eat and drink intellectually here! Opened by a man from Cologne and a lady from Dresden in 2011, Moby Dick is part of the cultural landscape of Prenzlauer Berg: there are many bookstores in this East Berlin Stadtteil (part of the city). Books are in German but non-German-speaking visitors might still find what is essential for a long or short trip: postcards and greeting cards. It is touching to see how small bookstores in the neighbourhood are well supported by the very local neighbours.

As a fairy tale lover, I was surprised that, to this day, Chinese fairy tales in German are still based on an old book by Swabian Sinologist Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930), a book with which I am already familiar. Curious, I thus picked up the German version of “A World Full of Animal Stories” by McAllister to accompany my French chocolate ice cream.