a bookish walk around town thomas kohlwein
traces industry bookfairs libraries cities
First thing in the morning I go to the newsagent to pick up the local daily papers. As I walk down the street I pass a bookstore with a tiny box of cheap paperbacks outside and browse through the novels. A tree grows in Brooklyn with a stamp from a public library. Down in the subway station I lean against the cast-iron column and begin browsing: I don’t start reading on page 1, I just start anywhere and see where it takes me. As I read about a yard with an iron gate I begin thinking about iron in construction, my glimpse falls to the roof and its iron beams as the train approaches. Inside I take my paper and look for the book reviews. A new collection of short stories portraying my neighbourhood. Listen to those rails a-thrumming, all aboard springs to mind, I jump out and change to the express train. Different rhythm, again time for the novel. I look at the stamp closely, I heard about the library branch, it closed a few years ago . A nice historic building, what happened to it? In the train quite a few readers, I recognise the books by their covers. Years of experience at the bargain boxes taught me that. Typical cover designs, typographic styles certain publishers prefer, different editions of the same book. Some of them new titles I just read the reviews about. Back in the daylight I find myself in part of downtown I haven’t been for years. It’s all finance and coffee shops, but there is a rich building heritage to discover. The street names are poetic, you can imagine the markets, the traders, the horses and wagons as you walk through the narrow lanes. In a place called book lane I wonder how all the bookstores and printers could operate in these small spaces. Here you can see a beautiful iron building, a plaque on it states it was built for a book publisher. From the author’s manuscript to the bound book every step happened in there. Decades ago everything moved to the suburbs, only a very small bookstore specialising on local history remains. There is a sign outside: Closed today, I’m at the fair .
E KaMpEr & Le-tticia on flickr.com
Feria del Libro de Madrid in Parque de El Retiro, 2013
We meet at the park where the long mall is crowded with readers between the little stands along the sidewalk. Hundreds of publishers, book stores, agencies have set up their temporary homes, sometimes writers sit outside, read from their work and sign their books. We get a map and look for the people we know, it’s a city in itself with stand numbers, road names and squares with stages for readings and discussions. We hear the noise of all the conversations, books already published and books in the making. We visit our publisher’s tiny booth and find her surrounded by so many readers and agents it feels like a marketplace. We look for the more quiet parts of this book town and stumble into a party of Irish publishers celebrating rights deals. But every glimpse we take we see books, they are all around us. We chat how books build places and places build books. Back after a short walk our publisher would like us to meet a librarian collecting literature in translation. Mentioning our idea we’re all inspired and agree to meet again soon.
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on site review 40 : the architect’s library :: books, shelves, collections
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