The best books & media apps

Indigo

Indigo is Canada's largest book and lifestyle retailer, selling books, gifts, home and wellness products, toys, and stationery through its store network and online, with an assortment running to more than seven million products. The chain has evolved from bookselling into a broader lifestyle destination, pairing its book business with curated gifting and home ranges and the plum rewards programme.

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore chain in the United States, selling books, ebooks, and audiobooks alongside NOOK e-readers and tablets, toys, games, gifts, and home items through its stores and online. The company pairs its retail network with a paid membership programme offering discounts and free shipping, and has returned to a store-led strategy where individual branches curate their own ranges.

Vinegar Syndrome

Vinegar Syndrome is an American film restoration and distribution company with a catalogue of hundreds of features, mostly from the 1960s to 1980s. The company restores films that would otherwise deteriorate past saving — working through its own lab partner, OCN Digital Labs — and sells the results on Blu-ray and 4K in limited pressings that collectors buy on release.

Shortboxed

Shortboxed is an American marketplace and auction platform for comic books, where collectors buy and sell graded and raw issues. The business focuses on trust in a market where condition and authenticity determine most of a book's value, and has built a substantial collector community around its listings and auctions.

World of Books

World of Books is a British seller of preloved books, rehoming millions of used titles each year that would otherwise go to waste, with free delivery on its full range. The company operates as a sustainability business as much as a bookseller, buying, sorting, and reselling donated and surplus stock, and giving books a second life rather than pulping them.

Books2Door

Books2Door is a British online bookseller specialising in children's books, box sets, and young adult fiction at heavily discounted prices, trading since 2004. The company has served more than a million customers, built around bundles and collections rather than single titles — the complete series rather than the individual volume.

Waterstones

Waterstones is the UK's biggest bookseller, offering a vast range of books across fiction, non-fiction and children's titles online, in its shops, and via click & collect. The brand pairs its retail network with a Waterstones Plus rewards programme.

Unknown Comics

Unknown Comics is an American comic book dealer specialising in exclusive variant covers, with a library of more than a thousand exclusive titles. The business commissions its own covers from named artists and sells them as limited runs, which is what distinguishes it from a general comic shop.

Rollin' Records

Rollin' Records is an American record shop selling new and used vinyl across genres, from current pressings and reissues to second-hand stock dug from collections. The shop sells online alongside its physical store, and its used inventory turns over constantly as collections are bought in — so the catalogue is never the same twice, and most second-hand records exist as a single copy.

The 616 Comics

The 616 Comics is an American comic retailer selling limited print exclusive variants and hard-to-find ratio variants at competitive prices. The business focuses on the incentive covers that drive collector demand — the one-in-twenty-five and one-in-fifty printings retailers must order deep to receive — rather than stocking a general comics range.

Recycle Vinyl

Recycle Vinyl is one of the UK's leading dance music vinyl retailers, specialising in second-hand records alongside new releases. The shop deals primarily in house, techno, disco, and related electronic genres, buying in private collections and DJ back catalogues and reselling them — so the stock is defined by what comes through the door rather than by a buying plan.

Trinity Comics

Trinity Comics is an American comic dealer specialising in curated exclusive covers commissioned from well-known artists, alongside private signings and commissioned sketches. The business operates at the collector end of the market, where a variant cover, a signature, or an original sketch carries most of the value rather than the issue itself.

Joe's Albums

Joe's Albums is an American record shop selling new and used vinyl across all genres and eras, with stock that changes constantly as collections come in. The business operates its store alongside online sales, and encourages customers to check back frequently because second-hand arrivals are one-of-a-kind.

Red Hood Comics

Red Hood Comics is a Las Vegas comic dealer specialising in CGC-graded vintage and modern comic books, with a physical store holding tens of thousands of back issues. Grading is central to the business: a professionally graded and slabbed comic is priced on its certified condition, which is what collectors at this end of the market buy on.

Juniper Books

Juniper Books curates and designs book sets, best known for custom-designed dust jackets that turn a series into a single piece of shelf art. The range spans trending pop culture titles and timeless classics, sold as curated collections and personalised sets, with limited drops alongside the standing catalogue.

Neighborhood Comics

Neighborhood Comics is a comic shop in downtown Savannah, Georgia, stocking weekly new releases alongside an extensive collection of rare back issues. The store is deliberately welcoming to new readers and families rather than aimed only at established collectors, and serves customers well beyond Savannah through mail-order subscriptions, virtual events, and a personal approach to every order it ships.

Premiere Collectibles

Premiere Collectibles is an American authenticated autograph store, selling signed books, vinyl, sports memorabilia, and historic pieces from athletes, authors, musicians, presidents, and cultural figures. Every item is third-party authenticated by JSA, PSA, or Beckett before it ships, and the business runs on drops of newly signed pieces as much as on standing stock.

CaptCan Comics

CaptCan Comics is Canada's online comic shop, stocking more than 400,000 back issues alongside hundreds of weekly pre-sales. The business also carries graphic novels, collectibles, and graded comics certified by CGC and CBCS, serving both readers filling gaps in a run and collectors buying slabbed books.

That's Vinyl

That's Vinyl is a British record shop selling new and second-hand vinyl, positioning itself as a bridge between seasoned audiophiles and newcomers to record collecting. The shop sells online alongside its physical store, with second-hand stock changing continuously as private collections are bought in — so the range is shaped by what walks through the door rather than by a buying plan.