Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops
DESCRIPTION OF A BOOK SHOP
AN AUSTRALIAN BOOK SHOP IN A SMALL TOWN
Martin walks past the tables to the far wall. A small sign identifies it as LITERATURE. A wry smile begins to stretch across his face but its progress is halted as he regards the top shelf of books. There, neatly aligned with only their spines showing, are the books he read and studied twenty years ago at university. Not just the same titles, but the same battered paperback editions, arranged like his courses themselves. There is Moby Dick, The Last of the Mohicans and The Scarlet Letter, sitting to the left of The Great Gatsby, Catch-22 and Herzog. There’s The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, For Love Alone and Coonardoo, leading to Free Fall, The Trial and The Quiet American. There’s a smattering of plays: The Caretaker, Rhinoceros and The Chapel Perilous. He pulls out a Penguin edition of A Room with a View, its spine held together by adhesive tape turned yellow with age. He opens it, half expecting to see the name of some forgotten classmate, but instead the name that greets him is Katherine Blonde. He replaces the book, careful not to damage it. Dead woman’s books, he thinks. He takes out his phone and snaps a photograph.
Sitting on the next shelf down are newer books, some looking almost untouched. James Joyce, Salman Rushdie, Tim Winton. He can’t discern any pattern in their arrangement. He pulls one out, then another, but there are no names written inside. He takes a couple of books and is turning to sit in one of the comfortable armchairs when he is startled, flinching involuntarily. A young woman has somehow appeared at the end of the central aisle.
‘Find anything interesting?’ she asks, smiling, her voice husky. She’s leaning nonchalantly against a bookshelf.
Scrublands by Chris Hammer 2018
Header: ‘The Gleaners.’ (c1929) Stanley Anderson
