Thanks to modern technology, we received the list of the kids’ school needs before we even left America. We knew which books were needed for each child, and how many binders, what kind of paper, and what colour ink for the fountain pens would be necessary.
We waited to get it all till we got here, which was a logical choice. The kind of papers and specific books wouldn’t even be available in Portland. But we’d still been in America long enough to picture ourselves going to a bookstore, handing over the list, and buying all the books.
I’ll pause here while you laugh heartily. I don’t know why I thought that. Surely I’m a bit old for such dewy-eyed naivety?
Donn and I have spent literally hours of our lives tramping around Agdal, the section where the bookstores are, looking for these books. We have found most of them. In fact, we’re really only missing two; one for Elliot, one for Abel. But those two books are nowhere to be found, and the teachers are getting surly.
Most bookstores are typical. You walk in, there’s a counter. You speak to someone behind the counter, or you hand them your list, and they go off and look through their merchandise and bring what they have to you. You pay, you leave. But Donn and I right off wandered into a used bookstore, a bouquiniste, where we seemed to enter another world.
It looked nothing from the outside, just a normal, house-sized door opening into a building on a busy street full of shops selling imported French clothing and shoes and tantalizingly-named restaurants*, closed for Ramadan.
We turned and entered, and gasped in amazement.
I have a picture for you, but first I have to describe it in words, so that you will look at the picture properly. Book were piled haphazardly from floor to ceiling. The walls were lined with shelves which were all crammed with books, and then in front of the shelves were more piles with more books. It was amazing. I have never seen so many books in such a small area before. We joined a straggly queue without having a choice; the narrow walkway between the stacks only allowed for passage of one person at a time.
The books were an unusual mix. They had everything; politics, religion, travel, biographies of obscure people, novels ancient and modern, and lots of lots of schoolbooks. I was absolutely fascinated. How on earth could it work? What if you spotted a book you wanted at the bottom of a 7-foot high stack? Would you just have to live with the slight satisfaction of knowing the book you wanted existed in the city and was safe and sound at the bouquiniste? Or what?
Donn claimed to be worried for his health. “One day, people will die here,” he warned darkly, imagining stacks of books starting to slide, people buried under the weight of other men’s words and gasping for breath. But I was unperturbed. “What a way to go!” I replied.
Scattered here and there were even a few books in English, although I didn’t really see any that appealed. I saw “Mood Poetry For Everyone in an Age of Rap”, which while I’m sure would be very inspiring, somehow didn’t really grab me. I saw “Human Development: Is There An Alternative?” and a lot of jokes sprang instantly to mind. (Feel free to make your own in comments) There was an outdated version of “Lonely Planet: Morocco,” and a paperback version, 70s era, of a knock-off Nancy Drew series. There were French versions of books by people like Ken Follett (likely) and Shirley MacLaine (unlikely).
The owner stood on a sort of raised platform, which was filled with its own piles of paperbacks, and we stood on tiptoe to pass him our list. He disappeared like a rabbit and returned some time later, with some but not all of the books, which he handed down for us to inspect. Used they certainly were; some were even torn. I wondered again at the mystery of the system. Why were the books we wanted hidden in the back, instead of out front? How could he know where they were? Did he know? Could he possibly have scanned all the shelves in the back in a relatively short time? Are there elves back there, helping?
Truly, I have much to learn about my new home.
*tantalizingly named restaurant. Don’t you want to try it?
16 comments
September 18, 2008 at 5:31 pm
LIB
What a fun post! Thank you for your word pictures and actual pictures. It is absolutely FASCINATING to hear about your new home. ‘Death by Books’ really tickled my fancy.
September 18, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Mary-LUE
Oh wow! That is crazy. That would qualify someone for Hoarders Anonymous here!
I may have to send some people this way to check this out.
September 18, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Kelly @ Love Well
It’s like a Moroccan version of Powell’s, n’est pas?
September 18, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Sue
I’m amazed by the picture. How wonderfully strange. I’m so glad you shared it with us. :>
September 18, 2008 at 9:19 pm
js
Surly teachers, huh? I can picture that. But what can you do? This store seems so random that I’d probably keep going back, thinking that the books will eventually turn up . . . or rise to the surface or . . .
September 19, 2008 at 12:10 am
planetnomad
Uh, in some ways like Powells, but mostly not. You can actually find things quite easily in Powells. They even have maps. Also, newer books that people might actually want to buy, although for all I know they may also have a copy of “Human Development: Is There an Alternative?” somewhere in their copious stacks.
September 19, 2008 at 6:35 am
jolyn
What a beautiful, beautiful picture.
I knew a woman whose house was like that, only a lot of the stacks were magazines and not books. You didn’t think there could possible be any way to keep track of what was where, but when you asked her about something she would say, “Hold on”, then go to a seemingly random stack and pull out a magazine that had the specific article that she was looking for on the topic.
That is an eclectic kind of genius, to be sure. I certainly wouldn’t want to have to clean around it. But I don’t imagine people like that concern themselves with such mundane things.
September 19, 2008 at 7:05 am
meredith
If you’re in a bind, e-mail me the names of the missing books, I can get them right here in town.
September 19, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Stephanie
Ummm…if the books were in English, I think I could live there. That’s incredible! It’ s a wonder there isn’t someone buried under the stacks!
September 19, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Beck
You know, that reminds me of a bookstore I visited a few times… this one – http://www.highwaybooks.ca/07-01-history.htm
It’s a wild, wild place.
September 19, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Linda
There is a bookstore like that in Paris, although much smaller, called the Abbey Bookstore. Books are piled everywhere and it is very difficult to pass anyone in the very tiny spaces there. The store probably the size of my lvingroom. I keep returning because they have used books in English. Shakespeare and Co, very famous, is also sort of crammed but they seem orgainzied there.
September 20, 2008 at 10:39 am
Tonggu Momma
If it didn’t feel so crowded, I think I would expire from happiness in that bookstore. Although y’all thought “death by book collapse,” I thought “fire hazard.”
Planet Nomad – thanks so much for sharing in our excitement about our upcoming adoption! I left a comment on my blog, but I didn’t know if you’d check back there. I really appreciate hearing your perspective, especially considering your more global lifestyle. As to the meaning of an LID — that’s an abbreviation of log-in date, a China-adoption term that signifies the day we “got in line” (so to speak) to adopt from China. Currently people with mid-February 2006 LIDs expect an adoption referral this coming month, so – if the rate of referral remains fairly consistent – our turn should occur sometime in the next year to 18 months.
BTW – my husband, who doesn’t read blogs, is now hooked on yours!
September 21, 2008 at 6:11 pm
avtcoach
I am seeing your site for the first time today. My what an interesing life and I know I will have so much to learn from reading your posts. I will be following your adventures!
I live in small town Oklahoma with few funds to travel. I certainly wish you the best in this journey and hope to learn more about the lands you are dwelling in! Thank you!
September 22, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Octamom
Wow…I’d be slightly terrified to request a book that was somewhere in the middle of the stacks for fear that I would then be responsible for the resulting avalanche!
Thanks so much for your comments over at my place about Rites of Passage–I bet you’ll be learning about some new ones in your new locale!
Can’t wait to share your blog with our homeschooling crew–beautiful pictures, beautiful posts, amazing adventures–
Blessings!
September 22, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Shalee
Oh, I’m with you… What a way to die!
But add it to your house hunt and think of all the adventures you can have!!!
April 3, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Strange Shores #1 « Paddy K
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