Bookshops

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.

The new excites and the old seduces

This is the book of a bookseller with pretensions. These are the first lines of that book. These words constitute the first on the first page. And all these words, lines and pages will make up the book. Do you, hypothetical readers, have any idea how horrific it is for a bookseller to have to write a book? A bookseller is a man who reads when he rests, and what he reads is book catalogues; when he goes for a walk, he stops in front of the windows of other bookshops; when he goes to another city, another country, he visits booksellers and publishers. Then one day this man decided to write a book about his trade. A book inside another book that will go to join the others in the windows or on the shelves of bookshops. Another book to arrange, mark, clean, replace, remove definitively. A bookseller is the being who is most aware of the futility of a book, and of its importance. That is why he is a man torn apart; a book is a commodity to buy and sell and he now constitutes that commodity. He buys and sells himself.

Mouat’s gaze is gentle and his gestures are pleasant and welcoming, despite his intimidating height; I’m not surprised he has full reading groups every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.