Read it online at www.archive.org
Much of my excitement at being in a bookstore comes from the place itself, the understanding that I can stay here for as long as need be. The unspoken rules we've developed for the bookstore are quite different from the rules that govern other retail enterprises. While the bookstore is most often privately held, it honors a public claim on its time and space. It is not a big-box store where one buys closets of toilet paper or enough Tabasco sauce for the apocalypse; nor is it a tony boutique that sells prestige in the shape of sequined dresses or rare gems; and it's no convenience store either, raided for a six-pack, cigarettes, and a Nutty Buddy on the way home from a hard day at work. The cash register's chime does not define how long we can linger. A bookstore is for hanging out. Often for hours."
I had already started to read this beautiful book online at archive.org but you know me, don't you? - unless I can hold it in my hand and turn its pages, it's not really a book. So I ordered it on ebay from someone in Rozelle in Sydney and it arrived today. It's in almost brandnew condition complete with a €15.00 price sticker on the back and a bookmark inside from the "Curious Fox English Bookshop, Flughafen-straße 22, Berlin".
Of course, I immediately emailed curiousfox.de to let them know that their book has completed its long journey from Berlin in Germany to its new home with a (ex-)German in Australia. It's what booklovers do! *)
*) And Orla Baumgarten and her partner Dave Gordon from Curious Fox Books did reply, "Lieber Peter, Danke für Ihre Nachricht! Australien! Was für eine Reise! Es freut uns sehr dass das Buch einen weiteren Leser gefunden hat. Lewis Buzbee war bei uns in der Buchhandlung vor ein paar Jahren als er in Berlin zu Besuch war. Wir hatten ein sehr interessantes Gespräch über Bücher bevor er sich als Buzbee vorgestellt hat. Eine sehr nette und interessante Person! Ganz liebe Grüße aus Berlin! Orla." It's what booklovers do!
P.S. The author, Lewis Buzbee, named the book after a letter that Vincent van Gogh (who had worked as a bookseller) wrote to his brother not long before he died, "I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening ... like a light in the midst of the darkness."
