Browse: The World in Bookshops Edited by Henry Hitchings
Initially I was not certain about this book, which was published in 2016. Browse sat on my shelves for a couple of years, during which time I read other books aimed at bibliophiles, before I gave this book more than a brief browse. Once started, I read rapidly, and found it enjoyable. Browse: The World in Bookshops covers the ground suggested by the title. Henry Hitchings, a British author, leads a group of 16 writers, from around the world, each of whom provide an essay about their favourite bookshop/s. The pieces range from nine to 21 pages, making them easily digestible in a single sitting, even for a slow reader like myself!
Besides Britain, the international line-up is drawn from Bosnia-Herzegovina, China, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, India, Italy, Kenya, Turkey, Ukraine, and the USA. Several contributors recall discovering wide breadths of literature, during childhood visits to bookshops, and we are given insights into great places that only a cosmopolitan minority could otherwise hope to reach.
Ali Smith writes about Leakey’s Bookshop, in her native Inverness. It is still going strong, and manages to be the first place to find a rare book Smith was searching for online, forty years after she first set foot in the physical shop. Smith, the best-known of the contributors in Britain, and the only one whose writing I am familiar with, was strangely credited on the website of the publisher, Pushkin Press, as the author of the collection. I mentioned this on Twitter at the point I finished reading the book, and got a reply from Henry Hitchings, as editor, saying he had not noticed the error!
Some of the writers here remember precious offerings from books, as a beacon of hope to an individual, or reading community, living under oppressive regimes, stretching from the Soviet bloc (Andrey Kurkov) to China (Yiyun Li), and the blooming of the Arab Spring in Egypt (Alaa Al Aswany).
In the USA, Michael Dirda recalls the excitement of dashing out to a warehouse, ahead of a forecast snow-storm, to acquire some more books. Dirda thinks he already owns between 15,000 and 20,000 books. I probably own about a thousand books – which seemed an unusually large collection.
Ian Sansom writes about his time working at Foyles, between 1989 and 1991. Employed at a German bank, in central London, I had been a regular customer in the mid-1980s, but surprised at the rather tatty look, and disorganised feel, of such a celebrated establishment. Foyles was famed as the biggest bookshop in world, but I decided to take my custom elsewhere. As a visitor to the branch of Books Etc (a chain now long gone) virtually opposite Foyles, in Charing Cross Road, I had a job interview at the former in 1990, but did not succeed in changing career. Sansom explains the deficiencies of Foyles, from his behind-the-counter vantage, and his essay took me down a dusty memory lane.
It is doubtful, as someone who is not a confident traveller, that I will visit the shops recommended by Henry Hitchings and his assembled companions (apart from a possible return to Foyles one day). It is possible I will follow up on works by these essayists, along with the books by other authors that they recommend. Reading can be an exponential process, as one book leads to several more!
andrewgodsell 