A Moveable Feast (EN)

This is the first post on this new blog. Below is the article about eleven of my travels, published in SEE ALL THIS. Happy reading! Kind regards, David de Goede

  'I created this bookstore like a man would write a novel, building each room like a chapter' In 1951, American George Whitman opened Le Mistral, a bookshop for English literature on the Left Bank of the Seine. In 1964, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, he renamed the bookstore to Shakespeare and Company, in honor of the bookseller he so admired – Sylvia Beach. Beach, had famously opened her bookstore under the same name in 1919, without her assistance James Joyce’s controversial Ulysses might have never appeared.  Like Beach’s store – where authors such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Eliot regularly walked in – Whitman’s store became a meeting place for writing Paris. ‘I created this bookstore like a man would write a novel, building each room like a chapter, and I like people to open the door the way they open a book, a book that leads into a magic world in their imaginations.’ Whitman said.  Aspiring writers were welcome to stay for free on the beds placed b...

‘We believe that art, even in the form of beautiful books, is part of the national cultural heritage and should be part of everyone’s lives.’  In the heart of the hometown of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) you will find K-A-V-K-A, a gallery and a bookstore. David de Goede: ‘An elegant store, beautifully decorated. Books on art and culture, architecture, photography, are attractively displayed. “Not quantity but quality.” I thought. Friendly employees share compelling stories about the store. They also operate a small publishing house.’

  Söderbokhandeln is one of Stockholm’s oldest bookstores. David de Goede: ‘A limited space with an impressive amount of books. It was recently discovered by BookTok influencers so more and more young readers have been finding their way to the store. They also organize regular seminars and talks.’

  ‘Livresse: the blissful feeling caused by prolonged reading.’  By taking over the Grangier bookstore – a former porn cinema spanning 1,300-square-meters – the fearless Simone Hisler saved the shop from permanent closure. She breathed new life into the store, advertised it across the city with the slogan ‘Livresse: the blissful feeling caused by prolonged reading.’  Hisler unexpectedly found herself in the book industry. Four years after her husband Daniel Hisler bought Librairie Even, he died, leaving Simone to manage the business without preparation, all while caring for their five children. Under her leadership, the business thrived, expanding to locations in Metz, Tionville and Strasbourg. Today, Librairie Grangier stands as the largest bookstore in Burgundy. In recognition of her valuable work, and promotion of books as ‘objects of pleasure and desire’. Hisler received the legion d’Honneur in 2015. Her proudest achievement, as admitted during the ceremony, was her c...

  ‘There’s a lot of talk about the crisis in the book industry. Yet, many people remain loyal to the printed, three-dimensional, sensual book.’  Calligramme – named after Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry collection – was founded by Helen Lehmann in 1984. Behind the counter, which she filled with postcards and photos of her favorite authors, she enjoyed smoking cigarettes and chatting with visitors ‘in the voice of an old Hollywood film actress’ as one customer recalls.  Since then, different booksellers are behind the counter, but they too recognise the indispensable cultural value of the place: ‘There is a lot of talk about the crisis in the book industry. Yet, many people remain loyal to the printed, three-dimensional, sensual book. They appreciate personal advice, flipping through pages and talking about literature.’

  David de Goede: ‘In the narrowest street and in the narrowest building in Paris lies the Abbey Bookshop. A labyrinthine building, run by an erudite, eccentric Canadian.’ By chance, Brian Spence stumbled upon this unusual building in the Latin Quarter: an 18th-century hôtel particulier with the beautiful facade. Here, he decided to open his bookstore.  The shop is located on rue de la Parcheminerie, originally called rue des Escrivains, named after the scribes and copyists who formed heart of the Parisian book trade until they were replaced by parchment makers in the late Middle Ages.  With the opening of his Abbey Bookshop, including 40,000 English-language titles, Spence brought the book trade back to the neighborhood in 1989.

  David de Goede: ‘Founder Christian Schädel started out as a journalist, writing about films, music and books. He got tired of that. He wanted to create a living room, ‘a home away from home’, and he succeeded. Everywhere you look you find seating areas with vintage designer furniture, and there is a pleasant bar: the place for parties, Tinder dates and family reunions.’ ‘Phil is not the internet, it’s real life,’ Schädel said.

‘How empty was Amsterdam, without your shop on the Spui.’  David de Goede: ‘On the fiftieth anniversary of Athenaeum Bookstore, the book Is u bekend met het alphabet? (Are you familiar with the alphabet?) was first published. It’s a book full of hilarious anecdotes about Athenaeum. On page six there is a text by Ischa Meijer: ‘The news here is constantly moulting, Self-importance becomes crippled; And yet, how empty was Amsterdam, without your trade on the Spui.’  That’s exactly right. Athenaeum Bookstore and the Singel Publishers have been a source of inspiration for me to begin mapping independent (literary) bookshops.’

  ‘Tourists come around nine in the morning to witness the opening of the doors. It has become a kind of ritual.’   Since British newspaper The Guardian called it ‘The finest bookshop of the world, a bookshop made in heaven’, Boekhandel Dominicanen receives a million visitors a year. The 13th-century church in Maastricht as the first Gothic church in the Low Countries, served all sorts of different functions before it became a bookshop in 2006: it was used as a depot for the city, a concert hall, slaughterhouse, a snake house, a boxing temple, a bicycle storage, and a carnival temple. Many locals had their first dances and their first kisses there.  The bookstore is equally beloved by foreign visitors: ‘Tourists come by around nine in the morning to witness the opening of the doors. It has become a kind of ritual.’ Afterwards, the goal is to sell books, but the majestic surroundings seem to help with that too: ‘Once you’re on the second floor, you have a better view of th...

  ‘Those who stepped inside from the noisy street found quiet and an invitation.’  Blackwell’s at 50 Broad Street has been a household Oxford name since its founding in 1879. ‘A megastore, in which you don’t feel lost for even a moment,’ says David de Goede. The bookstore is located in England’s oldest university town, so it’s no surprise that academic titles have always been their bread and butter. You can notice this especially in the impressive basement which was expanded in 1966. In this underground academic heart of the shop, you will find more than 150,000 books spread over nearly 5 kilometers of shelves.  The rich history of the building itself is still visible; In the ‘poetry corner’, on the first floor, you can still find some of the original bookshelves from the 19th century, and the ‘gaffer’s office’, where former owners Benjamin Henry and his son Basil Blackwell once had their offices, remains intact. On a placard inside the store, you can read Blackwell’s old...