Shop 4/ 1 Dawson St Strathalbyn SA 5255 0438847329 tbkstrathalbyn@gmail.com Tuesdays to Saturdays 10am to 4pm

Tag: #classics

Going to fly with these

The Book Keeper8 Comments on Going to fly with these

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This morning, two young girls with beautiful shoulder bags visited the shop. I don’t remember them here before. They settled in. I sat back with respect. True readers.

‘Lord of the Rings…. look at these…do you have The Sils?’

‘Yeah, ages ago…’

‘Every book that he’s written…’

‘I know, right!’

‘Do you think I should get something about…’

‘I shouldn’t be looking at this, but I love roses…’

They are young and can kneel easily. They can include the bottom shelves. They are not fatigued by high shelves. Reach and lift. Scan books on their knees and get up rapidly again. Their shoulders are not rounded. Once a lady told me she cannot read the titles on any books above her head or below her knees, and I needed to get rid of everything on the highest and lowest shelves. She was really angry. She had shoulders that were argumentative.

One girl cradles, then hugs the book about roses.

They can both walk and read at the same time. I used to be able to do this. The angry woman had said that my shop would cause injuries.

‘Look at this.’ The girls whisper darkly and laugh and laugh and laugh.

They sit on their heels, easily.

Once a man said I needed to do something about my doorway.

‘You need to do something about this doorway. Bloody ridiculous.’

The girls are are counting coins on the floor.

They stand up and look at each other’s armloads, then look down to examine their own cuddled stack. Then they move to another shelf. They have not yet got enough.

The angry lady had said that she would not return.

One girl said, ‘I’m going to fly with these. Just got The Last Unicorn.’

‘Did you get that?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Omg.’

‘Cmon.’

‘Ok’.

They pay and leave, hugging their books. Hugging their books. When they floated past my window, they were hugging their books.

Wild Swans by Arnaldo Mirasol

We were talking of dragons

The Book Keeper5 Comments on We were talking of dragons

Michael Komarck

“We were talking of dragons, Tolkien and I
In a Berkshire bar. The big workman
Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe
All the evening, from his empty mug
with gleaming eye glanced towards us:
‘I seen ’em myself!’ he said fiercely.”

C.S. Lewis, The Book of Dragons

Illustration by Michael Komarck

Dark outside, not cold

The Book Keeper1 Comment on Dark outside, not cold

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Dark outside, not cold. We’ve had rain and all night the garden was drinking. This morning, it just lay there.

Robert came into the shop this morning, furious because his friend had a joint when he was 16 years old,  and now at 60, can’t get a job. He said the government has ruined this country. I am glad he came in. I always feel better, adjusted and balanced, whenever Robert visits. It is a calibration of sorts. I forget what is valuable. Now I remember again.

A lady bought The Blind Assassin, Caleb’s Crossing, The Awakening, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.

A man told be about Charlie Chaplin. His wife said, ‘Come along, that’s enough of Charlie Chaplin.’

I was advised to read History of the Rain. I ordered a 1902, first edition copy of Ethel Turner’s Little Mother Meg. This is for Lily, an eleven year old collector with a discerning eye for vintage. Scott raced past but didn’t come in, although he grinned evilly through the door. Someone hit their head on one of my hanging balloons and said, ‘Damn these decorations. Where’s the bakery?’

The sun’s out. The next person will tell me about it.

The next person is Robert, back again and who never notices the weather anyway, so I get to tell him about it. He says he’s waiting for the government to start taxing us for it!

 

 

The Catcher in the Rye

The Book Keeper7 Comments on The Catcher in the Rye

Sebastiano Bongi toma artist

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.”

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Photography by Sebastiano Bongi Toma

Edgar Allan Poe

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“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more….”

From The Rave, Edgar Allan Poe, 1845

Peace Piece

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This man often comes to the shop. He always pauses, notices whatever music is playing. This afternoon he came in out of the rain quietly, and he noticed the music as usual. He raised one hand, reached towards it, nodded, didn’t say anything.

Then he went to look at books. I don’t remember what he chose, only that he liked the music. He lined his books up, stacked them without looking, said, yes, this is good. I don’t know if he meant his reading or the music or the rain; many people were delighted with the rain. He left, vaguely conducting something, not fast, just in agreement.

Artwork: All That Jazz by M. Sani

Virginia Woolf

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“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

The lady who read The Silver Brumby

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Old Woman Reading Boris Mayorov (2)

Two ladies, friends, came in together and split immediately into classics and crime. A third lady entered, passed her friends without greeting and folded herself into young readers; horses, ponies, Australian classics, where she sat with The Silver Brumby until the others had finished. She looked up once to say that I did not have the complete series here. She said she thought that I would have that. And Tennyson.
One of the other ladies had worked hard to bring down a volume of Heinrich Boll, short stories from the top shelf – she was delighted because as a young girl she had read this book in German. She’d had to translate one of the stories from German to English at school. If only she’d had this very book she could have cheated the whole assignment through. Both ladies leaned in and laughed darkly. The Silver Brumby lady read on silently.
The friend who had read Boll in German brought the book to me and described one story, a girl who crossed a bridge halfway but would go no further; she had never forgotten this story. They prepared to leave, rustling, packing, removing reading glasses.
The third lady brought her books to the counter and reminded me that I didn’t have the complete set (or Tennyson) and that she was disappointed.
She said, you’ve probably not read Tennyson.
She said, you’re a thousand years too young. I looked at her, delighted.

Artwork: Old Woman Reading, Boris Mayorov

We Own Nothing

The Book Keeper7 Comments on We Own Nothing

Image from the Marlborough Gallery .jpg

One man has chosen Journal to the Hebrides by James Boswell, a Folio edition, slipcased and it is very nice. He is pleased with it and pulls out the book to show me that it is still unread. He says that he always liked Boswell. He has a book on Chinese art and one of the journals of Anais Nin. He stacks them up and says; I always find something. When he talks he is always looking at other books, just in case there is one that needs him. Then he laughs out loud and says, I should bloody just go but you know…. then he said: nothing belongs to us, does it, nothing really does. We just interact with it and then we move on and all this just stays here. We don’t even own anything. Then he went out into the outside bright and he was reading the Anais Nin paperback as he walked up the road.

Image from the Marlborough Gallery, New York