Our all time favorite reads. If you ask us for a recommendation, we'll start with these.

Staff Favorites

Get your books hot off the press! New releases coming out every week.

New Releases

The Portuguese language has travelled far and wide across the globe. Its rich literary community includes authors from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Discover Lusophone authors old and new in translation.

Lusophone Authors

Small ou independent presses are publishing houses that do not make part of the big five companies that publish most of the books in the world. These independent publishers are some os the great taste makers of our time, taking chances on books beyond their commercial appeal.

Small Presses

The Vintage Minis, are the perfect collection to sample some of the world's most renowned authors, each in a subject they are experts in.

Vintage Minis

Our booklists are curated from the diverse personal tastes and interests of our team. We organize these lists around themes to highlight exciting reads that you might not otherwise encounter.&nbsp;

Booklists

Our general fiction section encompasses everything from the historical narratives, to modern day ones. Here you will find a broad selection of novels, from the genre bending to the realistic.

General Fiction

Immerse yourself in the beauty of verse and the power of words.

Poetry

Collections from established and new story tellers.

Short Stories

Romance

Ghost stories, slashers, and all the gore in between.

Horror

Thrillers, detective novels, true crime, and everything in between.

Mystery & True Crime

From riding spaceships to dragons, everything here is out of this world!

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Graphic novels ranging in genre and artistic styles, from writers and artists across the world.

Graphic Novels

From the great classics to the experimental, our fiction collection encompasses the best of every genre to transport you to other worlds and other lives through many different narratives.&nbsp;

Fiction

Know the world with real stories, through eyes and words of those who lived them.

Memoir

Dive into personal and critical reflections on a wide range of topics.

Essays

Writings on writing, reading, and everything literary.

Lit Crit

Books on cooking and traveling. Find here your next destination or recipe.

Food & Travel

Nonfiction about global history and the people that defined it.

History & Biography

Explore the world of creativity, from timeless art to contemporary design.

Art, Architecture & Fashion

Engage with ideas that challenge and inspire, from ancient to modern times.

Philosophy & Religion

In this category you will find nonfiction titles on current events, politics, sociology, and culture. Everything that you need to understand the world we live in and the ideas that shape it.

Politics, Society & Current Events

Titles on the natural world, psychology, technology, and much more.

Science

In this list you'll find new culture, criticism, biography, and scientific writing alongside classics of each genre.&nbsp;

Nonfiction

Books from all genres for middle-grade readers ages 8-12 , and Young adults ages 13-17, and all who are still young at heart.

YA & Middle-Grade

Children's

Comics

Books to guide young readers through the first years of their reading lives.&nbsp;

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Due to the EU’s new PPWR legislation, which comes into effect August 12, 2026, we will no longer be able to ship outside of Portugal. We hope to be able to resume shipping to the rest of the EU in the near future, and apologize for any inconvenience

Orders Outside Portugal!

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Genres

Merchandising

Gift Cards

Stationery

Clothing

It’s been a long and busy summer here at Good Company, and we wanted to update everyone on what’s been happening behind the scenes.

We launched the online store in July, and we’re so grateful to all who have ordered books, <a href="https://goodcompanybooks.com/shop/category/stationery">stationery</a>, and <a href="https://goodcompanybooks.com/shop/category/clothing">t-shirts</a>. It’s been quite a learning process (and a lot of work!). We’ve gotten our systems mostly worked out at this point, and can now start to optimize.

It currently takes about 1 full week from an order being placed to the order being delivered, and getting that down to under 4 days is a priority for us. The biggest factor in this of course is that we don’t have much space to hold physical stock while the shop is under construction. We are currently running the web-store out of our small apartment and can only fit so many books in our living room, so most books must be ordered from our distributor, before being sent to their final destination. You can expect order processing times to be cut in half as soon as the store opens.&nbsp;

That being said, we do have some books physically in stock, as well as our made-in-Portugal merch, all of which will ship from Lisbon within 24 hours. And if you want to help support us during the construction phase, ordering from the website is the best way to do it!

This is by far our most frequently asked question. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as buying some bookshelves.&nbsp;

The space needed a lot of work just to be safe and comfortable, never mind usable for a bookstore/cafe/event space, which is why this project has been taking so long. After gutting the inside, we’ve redone all the electrical, plumbing, and lighting, and added two new bathrooms. There have also been lots of licenses to apply for; we need permission from the freguesia to have signs on our windows, awnings to block the sun, a license to put chairs outside, a license to play music, etc.&nbsp;

Construction work has been properly underway on our space in Campo Pequeno since mid-June, and the end of the renovations is now finally in sight. As with any project, we’ve faced some setbacks, but we’ve also had some happy surprises as well. For example, we were able to salvage the original flooring, a beautiful 60’s terrazzo that emerged from underneath decades of carpet glue and linoleum. Now, with paint done and the tiles up, we can actually see our dream space emerge from the dust.

We’ve also started to assemble our wonderful team; many of you have written in with CVs and we will continue to hire over the next 2 months as we asses our needs.

It’s also been really encouraging to hear from many of you who have walked by the store and sent us your comments; please keep them coming! We want to get to know our community as much as possible.

The final weeks of September will be a sprint to finalize the finishes, get the lights lit, and all the furniture fitted.&nbsp;

This has been one of our favorite parts of the process, as we have gotten to meet and work with local artisans. We even spent a day at a quarry down in Estremoz picking the block of stone that will be used for tables, bar top, and display shelves!&nbsp;

The final part of the works will be the installation of all the shelving and display tables, which are being made here in Lisbon to fit our walls, and are slated to be fitted to the shop in the first week of October. Once that’s done, our team will spend a few days cleaning, dusting, and setting up the shop. And then, we will open our doors for a soft launch!&nbsp;

We are borrowing the idea from the restaurant industry; basically, we will open our doors quietly, with abbreviated hours, to give our team time to work out all the kinks and adapt systems and procedures, while still being open for business. This is a new kind of business model for Lisbon, and we aren’t quite sure how the city will respond, so we are going to take the first couple of weeks slow.&nbsp;

A lot is going to be happening over the next month, but we are still here, shipping out your orders and happy to hear from each and every one of you. We can’t wait to open our doors and meet you all in person in just a few short weeks.&nbsp;

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the next (and final!) project update, and have a great end of summer!

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September Project Update

We recently published a piece <a href="https://goodcompanybooks.substack.com/p/our-curation-manifesto?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web">on our substack </a>explaining how the lessons learned during our first two years have changed our perspective and approach to book curation. Here, you'll find our curation guidelines published in full. If you're interested in how an independent bookstore chooses books, and some of the surprising obstacles it has to overcome, we hope you'll take a moment to read that essay. As always, we welcome any comments or discussion.&nbsp;

At Good Company, we aim to be tastemakers, to promote and share literature that we love, believe in, and want to stay alive. This is a space where the best of the literary tradition resides next to innovative and remarkable contemporary voices. We aim to be a space where readers, from the most dedicated to the most casual, can be delighted or awakened by new and new-to-them voices, and where buried or forgotten classics can be rediscovered and given fresh meaning.

Discovery and education are what set us apart; anyone can ask Chat GPT or go to Amazon/FNAC/Bertrand for the same 100 books. Customers can always visit these platforms and get the exact title they want faster and cheaper. From a business perspective, for our position in the market to make sense we need to offer something different, so we offer something deeper. This of course places a high expectation on the team to know the selection, to be able to offer exceptional personalized service, and to have a catalog that is both broad enough and special enough to entice a curious customer to buy something even when we don’t have their first pick.

Our book curation should reflect both our team and our aspirations for our reading community. We should always aim to be a resource for readers, regardless of their reading level or interest. But crucially, we must recognize that not every person who walks through our door will be our customer—and that’s ok. As booksellers and curators we are also critics; we know what we like and we want to show our audience what we see in a book or author. Not everyone will be convinced; yet, this is the mission.

We are a highly curated bookshop that chooses to prioritize the quality of writing and of ideas above all else. Fundamentally, we define our values as humanist. We believe that every individual has an inherent right to liberty and free expression.&nbsp;

Thus, we respect and champion genuine discourse, and a variety of opinions and identities, even (and perhaps especially) when we do not personally agree. We believe this is the bedrock of a democratic society and that the failure to respectfully understand and engage with others is a dangerous trait of our moment.Yet, we acknowledge the existence of truly harmful ideas and we see it as our duty to face them; failure to understand and confront these means blinding ourselves to a full knowledge of the human experience for the sake of temporary comfort. Literature is and should continue to be a mechanism for this liberal, humanist, and ultimately moral education.&nbsp;

We do not pander to extremism or authoritarianism; this goes against our humanist values (and tends to make for poor writing.) We wish to honor the dignity and autonomy of every reader to interpret and discuss ideas freely. But, with our limited shelf space, we must make certain decisions about what titles we carry. Specifically, we do not wish to platform or support through our purchasing living individuals whose actions and ideas do active harm and go against our values.

Our foundation as curators begins within the Great Books tradition. The Classics, meaning those titles that have withstood the test of time in both critical and popular appeal and have formed an integral part of the development of our culture, inform our knowledge and taste when choosing contemporary titles.

Our total book selection is divided into a fixed “Good Company Canon” covering all genres, and makes up about half of all books in our store. This canon will be updated infrequently, and should remain consistently in stock. The remaining half is made up of a rotating selection, updated quarterly. Qualifying New Releases will be updated weekly. Each genre has a fixed number of titles that should be maintained by the quarterly rotation, dictated by the physical space of our shelves and our audience’s general reading preferences. Because of our space limitations, we must only select what we deem to be&nbsp;quality&nbsp;books.

How do we assess this? We judge books by their aesthetic value (the beauty or innovation of their prose), their cultural and historical impact, the clarity and effectiveness of their rhetoric… but above all for the power of their ideas. 

In short, we want our catalog to present a&nbsp;diversity of ideas, well crafted, and clearly presented.

Book curation is an act of deliberation that seeks to balance the aesthetic, the philosophical, and the practical. When choosing titles to maintain or add to the catalog, make sure that they meet at least&nbsp;three&nbsp;of the following criteria.

- Does this book have historical merit?

This book created discourse, genre innovation, or historical legacy that, even if not modern or current, endures as timeless– it changed the culture.

- Does it have critical/aesthetic merit?

The quality of the writing, storytelling, or research is excellent and deserves our backing. Here, it is important to know yourself as a reader when becoming a curator. Know what you like, but be self-aware enough to know that not everything you like is&nbsp;good. You should be able to identify quality writing even if it is/was controversial or you don’t necessarily like it.

- Does it spark an intellectual conversation?

Does this book have enough genuine (meaning you don’t need to go digging, twist the text, or get creative to prove) substance to prompt an intellectual discussion? Does it challenge you or teach you something? We define intellectual as: questions of morality, religion, politics, identity, ethics, philosophy, science, art, Truth, etc. (All the questions great literature probes that you can’t properly discuss on social media.)

This book is timely and not expired; it adds to our understanding of current events rather than sensationalizing them. We want everything we carry to have been curated, thus the titles in this section should always have a purpose of furthering current discourse. We are not a big-box-store and cannot be all-inclusive. We must understand why we wish to be part of contemporary discourse and that our role is that of a filter more than an encyclopedia. We avoid the generic, cheaply written, and derivative.

- Does it add to a diversity of ideas?

While we are highly selective, we must not be a monolith or fall into a niche. While we may champion causes we care about, we must not shut out that which we might be blind to. As such, there must be nuance on the shelves.

Ask yourself: does this book expand our worldviews as booksellers and take us out of our comfort zones? Does it add something new and unique to our shelves? Will a spectrum of readers find something? We know that this will be a fragile balancing act between the aesthetic merits of the work and our personal values. But crucially we must not build another echo chamber; genuine discourse is fundamental to our stated values.

In summary, the curatorial experience at Good Company should reflect thoughtfulness, a balance between our personal passions, causes, and interests; our appreciation for the beauty and power of written word; and the important ideas that literature preserves.

We want to be able to know, even if on the surface, every book in our catalog. This requires that we be well-informed and well-versed in literature, both classic and contemporary. The curators should be interested in what is sold, and not only focused on filling the shelves. Take time to know the catalog, understand customer patterns through sales and conversations, and most importantly, listen to visitors and provide them with options that fulfill their request while also reflecting the level of quality we strive to be defined by.&nbsp;We are first and foremost tastemakers; we serve our community by setting an example that we hope will help to shape it.

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Our Curation Manifesto

Browse our selection of English books, wander between the shelves, or ask us for a recommendation.&nbsp;

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Bookstore

A place to read, meet, or work. We serve specialty coffee, natural wine,  and small bites.

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Café

Good Company is centrally located in  Lisbon and easily accessible by metro, bus, bike, or car.

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How to find us

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The International Booker Prize 2026

Women's Prize for Fiction 2026

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Welcome to Good Company, visit our bookstore to browse our selection of English books, have a coffee or glass of wine in our cafe, or meet new friends at our events.

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Samuel Miller