It is a gloomy afternoon in Hanoi. Winter is long gone, but it doesn’t feel quite like spring yet. With clouds hanging dark and heavy overhead, you’d think it is going to drizzle, but it just stubbornly won’t. I get on my bright orange scooter, don a flowery coat and head for Quang Ba—a flower market in Tay Ho district in northern Hanoi.
But this isn’t my final destination, more like a landmark to help me locate Hop (‘box’), a bookshop buried somewhere in a nameless narrow alley. My Google map app says Hop is temporarily closed, but I press on.
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