Belgian Advent Calendar – Day 7
There are places in Brussels where the past doesn’t fade—it simply changes costume. The Galeries Saint-Hubert, completed in 1847, was Europe’s first covered shopping arcade, a glass-roofed marvel that preceded Milan’s famous Galleria by nearly two decades. Walking its length feels like stepping into an elegant parenthesis in time, where the 19th century vision of “everything for everybody” still echoes in the elegant cafĂ©s, chocolate shops, and jewelers that line its glazed corridors.
But it’s at the quieter end, in the Galerie des Princes, that I find what I’ve been searching for: Tropismes, a bookshop that tells the story of Brussels.
Before it became a temple to literature in 1984, this space was the Blue Note—one of Brussels’ legendary jazz clubs, where Belgian and international musicians filled these high-ceilinged rooms with improvisation and smoke. And before that, it was a dance school for Brussels’ elite, where the children of the bourgeoisie learned to waltz beneath ornate stucco ceilings. The bones of these former lives remain visible everywhere: the tall mirrors that once reflected dancers now reflect book spines; the gilded columns that witnessed jazz performances now stand guard over philosophy and poetry; the mezzanine where musicians once played now houses the children’s section, overlooking the entire space like a theatrical balcony.
As I push open the door, I understand immediately why this bookshop appears on every list of Europe’s most beautiful literary spaces. The room opens up before me like a revelation—soaring ceilings elaborately decorated with stucco work, enormous mirrors creating endless reflections of books and readers.
The ground floor holds contemporary literature, literary paperbacks, and thrillers—the current pulse of French-language fiction. I wander slowly, letting my eyes adjust to the abundance. Unlike the stark minimalism of modern bookshops, Tropismes embraces maximalism in the best sense: books are displayed on tables, propped on shelves, stacked with care. Handwritten notes from the booksellers dot certain covers—recommendations in blue ink, personal and unvarnished, the kind of guidance you’d get from a trusted friend rather than an algorithm.
I climb the narrow staircase to the mezzanine, where children’s books and comics create a riot of color against the architectural grandeur. From up here, looking down at the main floor, the mirrors multiply the space endlessly. It’s disorienting in the most wonderful way—you catch glimpses of yourself among the shelves, reflections within reflections, as if the bookshop exists in several dimensions at once.
I’ve come with a purpose: to find Belgian voices, writers who can guide me deeper into this country’s literary soul. My hands are soon full.
First, Antoine Wauters’ Le plus court chemin (The Shortest Path, not yet translated into English)—a meditation on childhood in the Belgian Ardennes during the 1980s. Wauters writes about memory the way some people write about landscape: as something both intensely personal and universally recognizable. This slim volume promises fragments of a rural Walloon childhood, reassembled by an adult writer trying to understand how those early years shaped everything that came after.
Next, Charles De Coster’s LĂ©gendes flamandes (Flemish Legends, available in English translation). Published in 1858, these tales are the precursor to De Coster’s masterwork, the legendary Ulenspiegel. Written in deliberately archaic French—channeling Rabelais and the 16th century—these are the folk stories of Flanders rendered with literary artistry. The bookseller’s note mentions their “merry truculence,” which feels like exactly what December needs.
Then comes the book I’m most eager to read: Marie Gevers’ La Comtesse des digues (The Countess of the Dikes, not yet translated into English). Published in 1931, this is Gevers’ first novel, and it carries the landscape of her beloved Flanders like a watermark. The story follows Suzanne, who inherits her father’s title as guardian of the river dikes—a role traditionally held only by men. Torn between her love for the Scheldt River and the possibility of romantic love, Suzanne must choose her own path. Gevers was the first woman elected to Belgium’s Royal Academy of French Language and Literature, so I’m eager to know her prose.
Finally, Maurice Maeterlinck’s La vie des abeilles and L’intelligence des fleurs (The Life of the Bee and The Intelligence of Flowers, both available in English). Published in 1901 and 1907 respectively, these philosophical essays marry natural observation with humanist meditation. Maeterlinck—Belgium’s Nobel Prize winner, symbolist playwright, and careful observer of the non-human world—wrote these long before anyone used the term “proto-ecological,” yet that’s precisely what they are. We’ll return to Maeterlinck later this month; for now, this volume promises a different way of seeing the world, one bee and one flower at a time.
I carry my stack to the register, where the bookseller wraps them with the care of someone who understands that books are promises of time yet to be spent. As I leave Tropismes, stepping back into the elegant corridor of the Galerie des Princes, I can almost hear the jazz echoing in the mirrors behind me—or perhaps it’s just the music that good bookshops always make, the quiet symphony of stories waiting to be read.
Outside, Brussels is decorated for Advent, but inside that remarkable room, time moves differently. The dancers are gone, the musicians have packed up their instruments, but the space remembers them all. And now it remembers books, and readers, and the conversations that happen silently between both.
Until tomorrow, Merry Advent !
Written by Alexandra Poppy
Writer, reader & curator of The Ritual of Reading
I’m Alexandra, the voice behind The Ritual of Reading. Somewhere between a stack of novels and a half-finished pot of tea, I keep finding traces of the life I want to live—slower, richer, filled with stories. The Ritual of Reading is where I gather what I love: books that linger, places with a past, and rituals that make ordinary days feel a little more meaningful. I write from Paris, where elegant bookshops and old-fashioned cafĂ©s offer endless inspiration—and I share it here, hoping it brings a spark to your own days, too.
