Bookshops, I’m beginning to discover, are as interconnected as books. They refer to one another, inspire one another and sometimes share creators. And with the help of all sorts of international events, such as the Frankfurt Book Fair and Guadalajara International Book Fair, the people behind them and those that love these stores meet, mingle and spark new ideas between them.

This was brought home to me last month during a conversation I had at Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath. The member of staff I was talking to revealed that the owner of New York bookstore Three Lives & Company had stopped by a few days previously. To me, this piece of information was rather surprising, as I had been at that shop in Manhattan’s historic Greenwich Village only a few weeks before…

On the day I go, the store is looking handsome. I’m there in response to comments from Vicki and Kht, who both answered the call I put out for NYC bookstore suggestions late last year by recommending I pay Three Lives & Company a visit.

Even before I cross the threshold, I can see why they love it. Nestled on its corner site at 154 West 10th Street, with books peering from every pane of its windows, the store seems to gleam in the gathering winter gloom.

Inside, Three Lives & Company is equally alluring. The small space is almost entirely lined with wooden bookcases, which display their wares in the sort of soft, golden light you get in old-fashioned library reading rooms. As I wander through, gentle music accompanies the mutterings of customers and counter staff, who manage the tricky balance of acknowledging visitors’ comings and goings without intruding upon browsing.

No offer tables here. No ‘buy one get one free’ – at least not on the day I visit. Instead, I get the feeling that each of the books lucky enough to have been given shelf-room here has been hand-picked for what it will add to the shop – and is far too valued to pile high and sell cheap.

Though the number of volumes Three Lives & Company can carry at any one time is necessarily limited, its selection is diverse. Eka Kurniawan’s Beauty is a Wound keeps company with works by Marilynne Robinson, Chaitali Sen, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Omar Musa. Signed copies of Pulitzer prize-winner Michael Cunningham’s latest beckon from a display.

Most of the usual suspects in translation populate the fiction section – Kafka, Ferrante, Pamuk and Murakami are all there – although I am struck by the absence of Nesbø, who I can normally count on seeing anywhere. Instead, in almost precisely the place I would expect to find Harry Hole and his associates, I spy Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb’s wickedly witty Pétronille.

At length, I select Italian Nobel Prize laureate Dario Fo’s The Pope’s Daughter and take it to the till. There, I meet another friend. Just next to the cash register, I spot a copy of Lingo by Gaston Dorren, the Dutch writer I shared an event with at the Edinburgh International Book Festival last year.

It seems the best bookshops can’t help but forge and strengthen connections.