Albertine

Upper East Side

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This wonderful two-story bookstore, which opened in 2014 as part of the French embassy's cultural programming, caters to enthusiasts of French literature. It stocks fiction, nonfiction and children's books in French, as well as English translations of French classics – along with rare offerings such as 18th-century editions from Diderot and Rousseu.

The space, inside the Italian Renaissance 1909 Payne Whitney mansion, which also houses the French embassy, was designed by Jacques Garcia and features a hand-painted mural of constellations, stars and planets modeled after the music room at Villa Stuck in Munich.

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