The window of the new 1/4 Satori bookshop features a quote from the Latvian poet Rainis — the first three stanzas read "to not drown in the small tasks and not to lose stars in the everyday life." Photo by Didzis Melbiksis.

RIGA — Salons, where people would meet to read and discuss poetry and philosophy, were hip in Enlightenment-era France. They’re coming back in style in crisis-era Latvia.

Latvia needs some bright ideas to pull it out of the crisis, or at least to keep people’s minds off the glum weather. A bright idea most haven’t thought of is turning a website into a real place.

¼ Satori is the name for a publishing house and philosophy and literature web portal www.satori.lv. Starting this month it has become a real gathering place for those interested in English language literature with a reading salon and bookstore.

People can sit down and read books like in a library and then discuss them. It’s located in the central Riga, on Lāčplēša street 31, just next to the crossing with Kr. Barona Street.

Reinis Tukišs, director of the place, explained to the press that the goal is to give meaningful texts to the visitors, something that would affect the way they think.

In the bookshelves here one can find both new and secondhand copies of disparate figures like James Joyce and Nick Cave, the Latvian poet Klāvs Elsbergs and the Russian legend Sergey Yesenin. And you don’t need to have money to buy a book that day, you can feel free to just chill out, take a book and read it on the spot.

And soon ¼ Satori promises will hold public lectures, poetry readings and meetings with the authors. Tukišs hopes that this project could change traditional reading habits by bringing the reading out of of intimacy of private homes and into the public space.