Whatshot
The rarity of a book devoid of interest is a matter of no concern
The rarity of a book devoid of interest is a matter of no concern
Author: Jo Rushby
Date: 2021-09-22
Date: 2021-09-22
The obituaries of bookshops have been written so many times in the last few decades. Kindle, e-books, Tik-Tok, Instagram and just plain lack of interest in anything with more than 30 letters are offered as reasons for their demise. But these doomsayers have all been exposed as twits that twitter. Sure, some bookshops have shut their doors, gone online, mutated into coffee shops. Like Ronaldo however, there are those who refuse to be put out to pasture, re(turning) with a vengeance.
In this world of instant gratification, to steal Shakespeare's memorable phrase, bookshops are "places where time is out of joint". I notice it when people walk up the stairs and into Ike's. They are in a hurry; 'I need to buy my partner a present...big book (size counts), beautiful cover (appearance is everything)'... Slowly, they take in the titles, the myth and mystery of the Greek classics, the allure of art, many worlds past and present. Homer's 'Iliad' begins with a plague fired into the Greeks by Apollo's silver arrows from Mount Olympus. And, as Covid-19 teaches us, plagues have been our Achilles Heel ever since.
More and more children are dragged in by parents who want them to have a real book, whose pages you turn and re-turn. Some are recalcitrant, more interested in the typewriters and old telephones. And then, they open a page and suddenly, I see them entranced, on haunches scanning the bookshelves; crouching tigers looking for hidden dragons.
Books in the end and the beginning are about words. I always think of them like a portmanteau. We pack them up neatly as we travel on life's journey, they change meaning and often refuse to fit neatly into the spaces we have allocated. They reflect our own histories, their words burst out of the suitcase, bend round corners and come back to us with a new gaze.
In this present whirl of a world, bookshops and reading have again become a refuge, escape, a place of comfort. As Jorge Carrión writes, "Every bookshop is a condensed version of the world. It is not a flight path, but rather the corridor between bookshelves that unites your country and its language with vast regions that speak other languages...You need no passport to gain entry to the cartography of a bookshop, to its representation of the world. Welcome to my world".
