Our bookstore buddy: Dietrich Rose

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Bookseller interview

Heute präsentieren wir unseren Buchhandlungsfreund Dietrich Rose aus Nordhausen in Thüringen. 1985 übernahm er die Buchhandlung, eine der wenigen privaten Buchhandlungen der DDR, von seinen Eltern.

Dietrich Rose, owner of the Buchhaus Rose in Nordhausen, Photo: Private

Why did you choose to run a bookshop?

My parents were booksellers and owned one of the few private bookshops in the GDR. The question of who would take over became an issue in 1985. I had no intention to abandon neither this treasure, their lifetime work, nor this particular town.

Please describe the final few meters of the route you take in the mornings to your bookshop.

I walk along the slight gradient up the Weberstraße. Just before reaching the bakery called Konditorei Jacobsohn I cross the street Am Petersberg. By then I can already see one ofthe bookshop‘s display windows and, after another hundred meters or so, one more and its entrance. Then, standing on the corner of Weberstraße and Rautenstraße, the whole scene is facing me: all three display windows on Rautenstraße, and also a market hall – Nordhäuser Markt – and the Town Hall, a 17 century building in the Renaissance style.

The bookstore Buchhaus Rose in Nordhausen, Photo: Private

Throughout the day ...When the shop-door opens and someone steps inside...

Hope, delight ...will this be wonderful ora ‚I might as well“ …

What is the wonderful thing that happens when we read?

That you can observe yourself: which can be irritating, stimulating, surprising.

Many say they don’t have the time to read. What can they do about that?

They had better come here and look at what we’ve got ...

Has a Norwegian book given you a reading experience that you remember with pleasure?

Ketil Bjørnstad, composer and author, has been here twice. Brilliant, moving ,humane and always bringing us music.

Ketil Bjørnstad visits Buchhandlung Rose, Photo: Private

From the German by Anna Paterson.

Visit the the webside of Buchhaus Rose here.

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