Today we would like to present to you our lovely bookstore buddy Eleonore Gollenstede, head of the Buchhandlung Gollenstede in Brake, close to Bremen.
Dear Eleonore, why did you choose to run a bookshop?
After a long life as a doctor, I chose to become a bookseller because I love books.
Please describe the final few meters of the route you take in the mornings to your bookshop.
I walk along the pedestrian street, looking out for the glowing flowers of the acacia, my adopted tree in front of my shop. And I think: such a lovely little bookshop in such a suitably lovely old house.
Throughout the day ...When the shop-door opens and someone steps inside...
When the door opens, a guest enters and he or she is greeted as a guest should be. It often happens that conversations become quite personal, even with complete strangers. Still, many of our customers are good acquaintances and some have also become our friends.
What is the wonderful thing that happens when we read?
The wonderful thing about reading is that you become engrossed in another world – one in which one must not be distracted.
Many say they don’t have the time to read. What can they do about that?
I don’t believe that it’s a matter of not finding the time to read. There must be something else in the way. Personally, I read everywhere – I keep a book at hand at the dentist’s, as I do on trains and at bedtime – being without a book simply won’t do. My every spare minute is spent reading.
Has a Norwegian book given you a reading experience that you remember with pleasure?
The philosophical ‘Letters to Sophie’ in Sophie’s World. A Novel about the History of Philosophy (Sofies verden) by Jostein Gaarder, transl. by Paulette Møller. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.
From the German by Anna Paterson.
Visit the the webside of Buchhandlung Gollenstede here.
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