Bookshop magic

Recently I went to a bookshop to buy two books on my wish list and took a moment to browse. As one does. Suddenly my eye caught something on a low shelf in the plays & poetry corner, the black & white café photograph on the book cover in my pic above. I saw the German title, Dichter im Café (Poet/Poets in the Café) and for a split second read the author’s name as Hermann Hesse before realising it was Hermann Kesten. I had never heard of Kesten, or not that I could recall. I picked it up, turned it over and read:

Das Kaffeehaus - legendärer Treffpunkt
des literarischen Austauschs, Umschlagplatz
revolutionärer Ideen, Bühne des Lebens.

These words on the back cover could be literally translated: The coffee house - legendary meeting place for literary exchange, a hub for revolutionary ideas, the stage of life.

I brought the book to the seating nook, where the magic happened. Well, it had started when I spotted the book but continued as I sat reading the preface. I understood everything; if I didn't understand a single word the context was always clear. The second sentence read: 'Das Kaffeehaus is ein Wartesaal der Poesie' (The coffee house is the waiting room of the poetry) and as I continued I knew I had to buy this book, the only copy left in the bookshop.

My silence on the blog can be explained by a move to the heart of Linz this summer, which you may have seen on Instagram, and various assignments. The beauty of the new location is having a bookshop within a short walking distance - browsing before doing the groceries gives life new meaning. I will be back soon with a new and long overdue reading list.

images mine, the 2nd appeared on Instagram 04/08/22 | cover photo: Horst Friedrichs

Books in lockdown

On Friday I walked to the post office to pick up a tome, about seven hundred pages of Iris Murdoch's letters, Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995. Initially, I bought it to put under the Christmas tree, a gift from me to myself, but instead, it will be my lockdown book. A book with a role.

Tomorrow Austria goes into lockdown due to a surge in COVID cases. It's safe to say that the mood is peculiar these days; I believe I’m not the only one dealing with lockdown weariness. I had been looking forward to finishing this term in early December, strolling the decorated streets of Linz, and spending time in bookshops and snug cafés. We can expect everything to reopen sometime before Christmas, meaning the city centre will be crowded, which I do not care for despite being vaccinated. One advantage of a lockdown is the ample time for pleasure reading and cosiness at home. A decent stack of books awaits me so I cannot complain.

With lots of unread books on my shelves, there will be no shortage of books in this lockdown. Recently I was in a bookshop and bought two German ones, including Medea. Stimmen by Christa Wolf (1929-2011). I have never read her work. I was in the mood for Greek mythology because during coffee breaks this autumn I have kept Mythos by Stephen Fry within reach. What a fun read, he's so witty. I have also been reading a new collection of Icelandic literary essays, Póetík í Reykavík: Erindi 14 höfunda. This publication celebrates the 10th anniversary of Reykjavik being a UNESCO City of Literature. One of the authors was so kind to send me a copy unexpectedly. These books will be on my next reading list, which I have been postponing to share on the blog.

A classic study break with veggie pasta

The entrance of Alex - Eine Buchhandlung

One bookshop I like is called Alex Buchhandlung, located at Der Linzer Hauptplatz, a large square close to the main bridge over the Danube River. It's a small bookshop with a vast selection of German books. I almost bought there a Fischer edition of Franz Kafka's diaries but thought to myself that my German might not be good enough to truly enjoy it. I decided to wait until I had read his stories The Judgement and Metamorphosis, which have been sitting on my shelves. I read an Icelandic translation of the latter ages ago but I have yet to read Kafka in German.

images mine, the 1st, 2nd and 5th appeared on Instagram 19/11/21; 15/11/21; 02/10/21

№ 28 reading list | Oh, Vienna ...

Here you have my new reading list. Something about this stack of books delights me immensely. I had trouble deciding which book to start with (I'm trying to break the habit of reading many at once) and in the end, I picked up Max Perkins by A. Scott Berg, the winner of the 1980 National Book Award. This is the biography of perhaps the most important editor of the 20th century, a book about books and the act of writing. Perkins was the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, to name a few. Given that The Great Gatsby has become a classic, it's almost astonishing to read Fitzgerald's letters to Perkins before its publication in 1925, full of doubts, especially about the title. Unfortunately, his concerns were valid because the book sold poorly, compared to his first, This Side of Paradise (1920). If only the dear old sport had known its fate.

№ 28 reading list:

1  Essayism  · Brian Dillon
2  This Little Art  · Kate Briggs
3  Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers  · Janet Malcolm
4  Shuggie Bain  · Douglas Stuart
5  Unquiet  · Linn Ullmann
6  Max Perkins: Editor of Genius  · A. Scott Berg
7  The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million  · Daniel Mendelsohn

Translated by: 5) Unquiet: Thilo Reinhard

The Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Vienna

In my last reading list entry, I told you about the COVID-19 restrictions in post-lockdown Austria: This summer would be different and there would likely be some train-hopping if one could go to cafés and restaurants without planning ahead. Sitting down to enjoy refreshments one needs a negative test, which limits spontaneity. My oldest daughter and her Dutch boyfriend recently came for a visit and we spent a day in Vienna. We went to the Belvedere Museum, greeted Napoleon - or Napi, as we call him - and took our time to admire Klimt's Kiss. We walked all over the city and enjoyed lunch in a public park. Our stroll ended in the Jewish quarter, where the English bookshop Shakespeare & Company is located, in Sterngasse to be exact. I love this district in Vienna, thus I give the members of Ultravox the last word, Oh, Vienna ...

images mine, the 2nd appeared on Instagram 16/07/21

Glimpses of life in Austria

I haven't made it a habit to share on the blog the images I post on Instagram, but these last months the time for blogging has been limited and a lot has happened: We recently moved to Austria, both our daughters went to university abroad and I decided to switch gears: I started my Master's in Museology, which I'm fortunate to be able to study online at the University of Iceland. Textbooks, lectures and assignments are keeping me busy but I felt the blog needed updating and decided to use images from my archive, of the Traunsee region, a bookshop in Vienna and two study-related still lifes.

This was my first visit to the Traunsee region and I will never forget the moment I first spotted the lake: My heart skipped a beat. The scenery was achingly beautiful. On a sunny Sunday we drove through small villages, enjoyed lunch by the lake in Altmünster, and afterwards headed to Gmunden. Later we were invited to a garden party in Gmunden, where we dined al fresco on the hillside overlooking the lake, with the Traunstein mountain so close it almost felt as if we could reach the hand out and touch it.

I love finding books in my mailbox. The staff at Fitzcarraldo Editions sent me a copy of I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux, published last week in the UK (translated by Tanya Leslie). This is how I described the book on Instagram: 'It's the author's account of losing her mother to Alzheimer's disease. This short book is powerful, filled with raw, gut-wrenching emotions. Sometimes I need to take a break from the reading to let a sentence, or one word only, sink in.' The book will be on my next reading list and later I will review it.

After accompanying our oldest daughter to the Vienna airport one morning, I spent the rest of the day in the city. I hadn't been there in a long time, headed straight for the metro and got out on the Schwedenplatz station. From there I walked a short distance to Sterngasse, a street where Shakespeare & Co. is located, a bookshop that sells English books (independent, not a brand of the one in Paris). It's small, vintage-looking, with a surprisingly good collection.

After strolling in the vicinity of the bookshop, I headed east along the Fleischmarkt and Postgasse streets. This part of the city was bursting with life, people everywhere sitting outdoors at small cafés and restaurants. Wonderful mood, distinctively European, if that makes sense. I grabbed sushi and found a bench in Stadtpark where I sat in the shadow of a tree and did some people watching. Then I headed south towards the Belvedere Palace and enjoyed its beauty. This time I didn't enter the museum; I have been there before and promised my daughter that I would later go with her to see The Kiss by Gustav Klimt and other paintings.

As I will be busy with my studies, I will not have much time for pleasure reading, and for photographing books, but soon I intend to share a new reading list. I have some ideas about how to keep my blog more alive during my studies and one is starting a new category where I feature book covers.

You may have noticed that I renew and rotate covers in the blog's sidebar and footer. These are new editions that I'm particularly interested in, and sometimes books coming out in paperback for the first time. I would like to give some of these covers a more permanent place on the blog, mainly to praise a beautiful book design. Then there are a few entries that I still owe, mainly Reading journal entries. If you think not much is happening on the blog you can always check my Instagram, where I occasionally share photos of books, mainly.

images by me, appeared on Instagram in August & September 2019

№ 14 reading list: non-fiction in spring

A fool's errand to the University Library is the reason for my sharing the № 14 reading list later than intended. I went there to borrow the books by Martin Amis and Joan Didion - I wanted to photograph the entire stack of books - but I forgot the paper one needs to collect the library card. I still haven't had time to go back but thought it best to share the list before I finish reading the other books on it, all non-fiction. Every now and then I leaf through the notebook containing the books I want to read (I'm constantly adding more titles) and try to prioritise; Amis's The War Against Cliché is one of those books and I wanted to reread Didion's The White Album. Some may ask why waste time rereading books when there are so many unread. Well, I believe some books demand rereading. I haven't read everything by Didion, but let's say it's on my list. The publishing house Diogenes provided the German book on the list and for that I would like to thank them. It's a delightful read, with stories related to bookshops (see further below).

№ 14 reading list:
1  The Prime of Life  by Simone de Beauvoir
2  Letters to Friends, Family & Editors  by Franz Kafka
3  The White Album  by Joan Didion
4  The War Against Cliché  by Martin Amis
5  Der schönste Ort der Welt: Von Menschen in Buchhandlungen  [German]
6  Þúsund kossar  by Jón Gnarr [Icelandic, 'Thousand Kisses']
7  Orðið á götunni  by Margrét Bjarnadóttir [Icelandic]

To embrace my inner bibliophile, and to improve my German, I was grateful to receive a book from the Diogenes Verlag to add to the list: Der schönste Ort der Welt: Von Menschen in Buchhandlungen. In English the title reads: 'The Most Beautiful Place in the World: From People in Bookshops'. It contains twenty bookshop stories collected by Martha Schoknecht, narrated by authors Mark Twain, Penelope Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Patricia Highsmith, and Ingrid Noll, to name a few. For those of you who have read, and hopefully loved, Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road (for more, see my blog entry), I was delighted to find in the book some of the letters she wrote to and received from the Marks & Co. booksellers in London. She is just as wonderful and funny in German.

As someone who admits to often judging a book by its cover, I have to comment on the book design. Whenever I enter a bookshop here in Germany I cannot help but swoon over the white paperbacks published by Diogenes. The cover of this book is especially beautiful: a vibrant and colourful painting, Union Square Bookstore, by artist Patti Mollica.

Bookshop stories, Der schönste Ort der Welt, published by Diogenes

A note on the Icelandic books: The first is Jóga's memoir, who is a well-known massager in Iceland and, among other things, ran a popular and unique clothing boutique in Reykjavik. As a young woman, she was seriously injured in a car accident in the US, followed by a legal battle that changed her life drastically. The book is written by her husband Jón Gnarr, a famous actor and comedian; from 2010-2014 he was the Mayor of Reykjavik. The second book is quite an interesting piece of work by Margrét Bjarnadóttir (who happens to be the sister of a dear friend, who gave me the two books). During the period May 2009 to December 2013, she collected phrases that she overheard on the street, at cafés, etc. Each page has one entry. Usually, it's just a short sentence or a question, and this makes it such a fun read and philosophical.

Edinburgh: Waterstones bookshop & Calton Hill

Having visited Edinburgh on a few occasions last summer I can already identify with the late Alan Rickman's experience of the Scottish capital: 'I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh in many ways I am coming home' (source). We were there during the Fringe, when the city is bursting with life and culture, and created unforgettable memories. Waterstones on Prince Street, their West End branch, made it to our list of homes away from home: This four-storey bookshop is the bibliophile's Promised Land: it has a fantastic collection of books and a relaxing atmosphere, not to mention the W Café with its stunning view of the Castle Hill.

The Castle Hill seen from the W Café

To escape the crowded streets, we walked through the Princes Street Gardens from the Waverley station to Waterstones, enjoyed refreshment and stayed longer than we intended - we found time for Waterstones on each of our trips. Just behind the building, running parallel between Princes St and George St, is the charming Rose Street, a narrow street free from traffic with what seems like endless pubs and restaurants.

W Café, a coffee house within the Waterstones bookshop

Victoria Street in the Old Town

In Edinburgh we walked all over the city centre: up to the Castle and down to the Grassmarket, up Victoria Street, along the Royal Mile, where we explored some of the courts, and off in the direction of Calton Hill. Up the stairs to Calton Hill we went to enjoy the spectacular view of the city. We even climbed the stairs to enjoy the view from the Nelson Monument. It was worth it.

The clock tower of the Balmoral Hotel on Princes Street, seen from Calton Hill

The Castle seen from Calton Hill, and to the right, the gothic Scott Monument