1. the most popular is Kunming xin zhi tu su cheng昆明新知图书城kunming xin zhi book store
www.xinzhi.com.cn/
one is at xin wen road, 348#, fourth floor新闻路348号图书批发市场四楼
another is in kunshi road, near xiao xi men, take no. 10 bus. 昆师路1号三楼昆明新知图书城
it is popular because it owns all kinds of books. but disscount is little, with a member card, 5% disscount only.
2. the most popular for students is qinghua shu wu清华书屋qing hua bookstore
www.qhbs.com/welcome.jsp
qinghua bookstore holds most books for students, text books and for chinese learning. also get 10% discount without a memer card, 15% discount with a memer card. and near the universities.
121road 308#, by the gate of yunnan normal university 昆明市一二一大街308号（云南师范大学正门旁）
3. other cheap (20-40% discount) bookstores are in xin wen road, the whole sale market of book新闻路图书批发市场, but far from the center of the city
4. there is one bookstore selling english and other more than 10 foreign languages books and many other books for foreigners to learn chinese on the wen lin road.

I glanced at some pictures of the kunming library on ikunmming, it looks pretty decent. Do they have much of a western selection? And is it easy to join to borrow books from there?

i have never borrowed any books from kunming library. but i guess that is not so difficult. just need to pay and get a library card.

The Yunnan library has a bit of a mixed collection in the international section. There are for example German language books, but guess what? They are all from the DDR period (East Germany. Still remember that country?) English books are or very old (Before the communist takeover) or of the last 20 years. The earlier new collection contains a lot of Chinese illegal copies. Books about Marxism are now being replaced by the usual airport launch bookshop stuff of the usual (American) bulk writers. If you are really interested in that kind of stuff then you better go to Wei's restaurant because they have an even bigger selection of that stuff.
Also the selection has never been cleaned up and contains a lot of rather outdated stuff (Study guide to the USA, edition 1921) and stuff that really will not interest anybody except some absolute freaks (The report of the minutes of the FAO bi-annual summit on poultry production 1964 Malta) it contains some little gems as well. Mind you it takes some poking around (Plenty of time one can spend there undisturbed because nobody goes there except me).
The subscription fee is something like 36 RMB but one has to pay a refundable deposit of 500RMB for foreign books. (For Chinese books this is far less). Don't expect any of the latest stuff nor useful books on studying Chinese. For registration bring passport, pass-photo and proof of residence (And the 500RMB deposit)

As already mentioned Wei's restaurant has a large selection of pulp books.
The French cafe has some good stuff in English and of course some in French. Pizza da Rocco has some Italian stuff.

In the little ally way between Welin street and YunDa there is a little bookshop that has some good English language stuff. (Not cheap however).

If you happen to be in Bangkok check out Asia book shops (and publisher) for good books on the region. (Some available as well in the Yunnan library in the Thai section of the international department.

Good luck.

Ohh My Godd! but dammmm!

I was actually looking for the minutes for the 1965 meeting on poultry production. please keep an eye out

thanks for the reply and i will keep an eye out for you in the racks of books in the library.

cheers

Anybody know where I can get a copy of the 1971 edition "Why Porridge Birds Lays it's Eggs in the Air?" I lost mine back in 1968. I'll even take a Chinese version!

the book store at wenlin street is "mandarin bookstore"

Yeah I was there today. Some great books but, as per reviews, very unfriendly and they followed me around like I was casing the joint. I wouldnt be a fan.

I understand what Daithi means about following people around, which I also find annoying, although otherwise I don't find the place unfriendly, and to my knowledge it's absolutely the best place to buy English-language books in Yunnan. They also have some in French and, I think, Spanish. I don't know what the reading foreign public would do without the place - the guy who runs it actually knows books well, reads them and has intelligent opinions about them, unlike, apparently, most of those who run or work in foreign language bookstores in this part of China. He is also a contact for local foreign-language writers and translators, and had published or arranged publication (through a Hong Kong connection) for a number of books. His goal, though it is not unusual, is to make money, which he'll tell you up front.

Elephant books is good, it's inside the courtyard across from Salvador's on Wenhua Xiang