Pilgrims Book House

The Varanasi branch, open since 1999, of the Kathmandu bookshop and publishing house that generations of travellers across the Himalaya have treated as a landmark. It sits on Nawabganj Road near Durgakund and is smaller than the famous original, but the shelves keep the same character: the Himalaya, Buddhism, religion and philosophy, plus Pilgrims Publishing's own reprints of rare India titles that are hard to find anywhere else. A rich hunting ground if your reading list runs toward Hinduism and pilgrimage.

Kathmandu's most famous bookshop has an outpost here, with its own rare reprints