Let Rosemarie Reif-Ruppert's picturesque descriptions take you on a journey into her everyday life as a bookseller.
Dear Rosemarie, why did you choose to run a bookshop?
… simply because, when the time is right, there’s nothing more wonderful than being able to bring the right person together with the right book. I can’t imagine any more multifaceted job: it’s all here, past and present, our world and the universe, science and fantasy – everything as well as all the writing that there is to discover between the two covers of a book.
Please describe the final few meters of the route you take in the mornings to your bookshop.
I walk round the corner, then look left and, there, straight across from where I am, is the house built at the turn of the last century from pale pink, Franconian sandstone. Standing in front of the building, I see our lime tree, which gives off a lovely scent in early summer. Whenever the blue bicycle is parked next to the entrance, I know that my colleague has got there already and is probably busy unpacking the first boxes from our wholesalers. A quick look at our projecting shop sign, a metal oval with the name of our bookshop in ‘art noveau’ lettering that surrounds an image: the silhouette of a tree and two people who lean against its trunk while they read.
The little white-haired Greek lady from the house next door comes towards me, she is taking her little granddaughter to nursery school. Friedel, on his way to work, gives me a royal wave as he cycles past. Hülya and Samira with their heavy school satchels have quite a lot to tell each other: I have to admire, as I do afresh every time, how instantly they switch from Turkish to German and back again.
And, now, I’ve reached our display window set in frame painted petrol blue. It’s on my right, and just next to it are the steps leading up to our art noveau-style door. It opens and – in I go!
Throughout the day...
When the shop-door opens and someone steps inside...
…it is often someone whose face is familiar to us from a long way back. Many of our customers have been coming to see us ever since we opened the shop thirty-three years ago. And we feel close to so many of them by lasting friendships. Now and then, customers will bring us samples of their home-baking. Besides, the new arrivals in the area will soon come to feel at home in the shop.
You know, when the door opens it also allows much else to enter – sadness and joy, new-born life, enthusiasm for life but also a variety of life stories, just about all of human existence.
Whoever you are, if you want to learn something about your fellow men and women: go to serve in a bookshop!
And then it gets thrilling: which book in our special collection will find a new home?
What wonderful thing is it that happens when we read?
Whatever we read, it is bound to change us. Enchanted by wonderful stories, we are effortlessly liberated and free to escape our daily routine. Suddenly, we become all-knowing and all-powerful, able to cross seas and continents and explore distant galaxies – and ourselves, too! We might become part of incredible adventures and experience the greatest love ever, or perhaps slip into the role of a murderer – or a saint. Just as we can learn about nature’s laws and secrets – all this and much more, without moving from our own sofa!
Honestly, can you tell me of anything that could be richer in resources, more thrilling? The whole cosmos can be found between the covers of a book and so can become ours to take on board and think about.
Many people say they don’t have the time to read. What can they do about that?
… they can read anywhere and at any time! No need to pick In Search of Lost Time. Waiting around in the queue at the supermarket till will be less wearisome if you’re kept amused by Marc-Uwe (Kling) in The Kangaroo Chronicles. And why should you be watching a dull crime story on the telly, hanging on to the end instead of immersing yourself in a really exciting book?
Come to see us and you will find time to read! We simply hold our customers captive. Once we are closed for business you can carry on burying your nose in a book here in the bookshop. And you shouldn’t let yourself be talked out of it by stuff like: you’ve got to do some work soon or do the washing up or watch the evening news ... there’s only one thing for it: Take time to read!
Has a Norwegian book given you a reading experience that you remember with pleasure?
Oh yes – sure! First up is the wonderfully well told story in Psalm at Journey's Endby Erik Fosnes Hansen. Seven musicians on the Titanic, employed to entertain the passengers in First Class, have placed all their hopes on the future awaiting them after landing in New York. Against the background of the greatest catastrophe in passenger shipping, Fosnes Hansen writes about their plans for the future – all shattered – so very touchingly and poetically.
Just now, I’m reading The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting. Edvard has to expose well concealed family secrets in order to find his own identity. Very tense and – at least, in my opinion – very Norwegian!
Translated from the German by Anna Paterson
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