Today we would like to introduce you to Christina Kelm. She is the owner of the lovely bookstore "Lesekatze" in Alzenau.
Dear Ms Kelm, why did you choose to run a bookshop?
I grew up in a home full of books. My father is in the business, as: he is a printer and book binder. As a child, I could lose myself in books incredibly easily. But I became a bookseller by a circuitous route. By the time I was beginning to feel middle-aged, I had trained as a chemistry technician and spent my working time in in laboratories, even though I didn’t feel it was truly my thing,.. Then, around my thirtieth birthday, I suddenly found myself unemployed. I got a job in a bookshop, minding the till. The Department of Employment paid for my retraining as a bookseller. I have been an independent trader since my early forties. And I never regretted it!
Please describe the final few meters of the route you take in the mornings to your bookshop.
I normally park on the big parking lot in front of the Alzenau fortress. After that, my really quite idyllic walk to the shop takes me along the Kahl, a small stream that flows through Alzenau. So, to my left is the Kahl, on my right the fortress – it makes a beautiful scene to look at every morning. And then I am soon in the shop and the work of an ordinary day begins – in so far as one should describe any working day full of people and books as ‘ordinary’.
Throughout the day ... When the shop-door opens and someone steps inside...
‘Hello’‚ ‘How are you’, ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good afternoon’, ‘Many thanks’ and ‘Have a nice day’... Every day typically means taking 8000 steps and, most evenings, leaves me with a feeling that I have said a million words.
What is the wonderful thing that happens when we read?
New worlds open up, worlds to learn from – both from the stories themselves and the periods in which they are set.
Many say they don’t have the time to read. What can they do about that?
It’s a question I ask myself every day ... personally, I read at night when I can’t sleep – something that happens quite often so that is one way for me to get a lot of reading done.
Generally, you must be able to make breaks in your daily routine and perhaps let the TV or the computer alone (and put the mobile away).
Has a Norwegian book given you a reading experience that you remember with pleasure?
In 2009 I managed to finish a trilogy of novels in a week. The books were by Anne B Ragde: Das Lügenhaus (The House of Lies), Einsiedlerkrebse (The Hermit Crab) and Hitzewelle (Heatwave). I felt virtually present in Trondheim as I read and was desperately sad that there were no more books left of the trilogy. But I became so much happier when the 4th volume Sonntags in Trondheim (Sundays in Trondheim) came out in 2017. Naturally, by then I had to remind myself of the three earlier books, this time in audio book format (as a matter of fact, they were brilliantly well presented).
From the German by Anna Paterson.
Visit the the webside of Buchhandlung Lesekatze in Alzenau here.
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