Working between memories: Some experiences in a second-hand bookstore

Books contain other stories besides the ones they tell, they contain stories from the past, from other people, their love, their pain, happy families, sad families, grandmothers, Christmas... a thousand memories. Working in a second-hand bookstore means being constantly in touch with other people's memories and hearts through their books, it means meeting many strangers and their lives.

Depending on the kind of reader you are, you leave more or less traces in your books. Some, like me, write them down and study them, in my case with a pencil, but we leave a lot of what we feel and think on the pages. If another person reads one of my favorite books, will also read part of my soul.

There are others who do not write them down but fill them with other memories: photographs, receipts, chocolate wrappers, baptism memories. It is really a box of memories, a journal, just as it was for a long time in Victorian and Edwardian times.

Every week when I organize the "new" books I remember the Brontë sisters and their habit of filling their books with notes, weavings, lace and more; it is precisely what often happens in the bookstore. Books arrive with photographs, with plane tickets, movie tickets... hundreds of memories that in one way or another ended up in my hands. It's always a bittersweet feeling, while it's moving to see the lives of these people, it also makes me absolutely sad to think that their books and memoirs are being donated or given away, sold, removed from their homes.

We once had a sale of a batch of books, all of them about Russia, printed during the Soviet times, great pieces by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, but also from other authors, less common, and harder to find. Most of them are now part of my personal library. The one who sold them was a widow who no longer had space for her deceased husband's books. All these books bore the signature and memories of this man. They all have news clippings, notes, lists of errors... each and every one of them was read by their owner in depth, with love.

In one I found a medical prescription and diagnosis: brain damage and facial paralysis. Surely this prevented him from continuing reading and over time was what ended his life. I couldn't help but cry when reading all this, this man, who had so much in common with me, was now in my hands through his books and memories.

I had another particularly moving experience. On my instagram account I posted a photo of my book "A moveable feast" by Hemingway, one of my favorite authors and books, and this world is so small that a friend, who lives in Rome, a friend I don't know in person, recognized the book as one of her father! It turned out that we are from the same country, and that book had traveled with her parents from Argentina to others places. Now she in Rome saw the photograph of the book, uniting stories, continents and memories. She told me how her parents had the habit of putting their stamp and signature on certain pages of their books. This moment in a photograph was an excuse to talk and learn more about her heart and her family, share a moving moment. Her father, like her and me, was a passionate reader with a special and curated personal library. This book was also special for her and thanks to a photograph we were able to talk about how valuable this world of letters was. Although it was also a sad moment, it was really exciting, sweet, for her to know that it was I who was now taking care of and reading what belonged to her father, for me to know that this chaotic world gives us moments of beauty

Here the photograph in question, the book with the personal stamp

Another thing I love is when passionate readers arrive and find that book they have been looking for for years, books they had in their childhood, books their grandmothers read to them and they remember with love. Likewise, the bookstore is full of books with dedications, love letters, apology notes. Dedications from loving grandmothers, husbands, grandchildren... the list is infinite, it always makes us smile to see so much love between yellow pages and worn by time.

In the same way, is wonderful to being able to, sometimes, come across unique pieces, books that take your breath away for a moment like a first edition in Spanish of Jame Joyce's Ulysses! It is a book in perfect condition, a first edition! Thus, there have been many special books, rare editions, printed in many countries or with curious historical conditions that have reached the bookstore, many of which I have taken home. I have especially devoted myself to collecting Russian literature printed in Moscow during the USSR. I just can't resist, and to be fair, they are unique and curious books.

This first edition in Spanish of 'Ulysses' by James Joyce, is published under the direction of Max Dickmann

In the same way, the 19th century editions are a jewel that always fills me with emotion. Books in Spanish printed in Paris by a widow who inherited her husband's printing press is truly a peculiar situation, which is the case of those books from the Bookshop of the Widow by Charles Bouret.

A 1889 edition of Cervantes, Bocaccio and fairy tales are just a little of what makes me always, always sigh. (Cervantes is now also part of my personal collection)

The Garnier Hermanos Bookstore in Paris was a pioneer in the dissemination of literature during the 19th century. I highly recommend reading about its contribution to the world of letters.

Literature is a magical world, it takes us not only to other places, but to the heart and home, to the memories of other people. In each of these books, its previous owners have left part of their history and life, part of their emotions.

In this job, I have not only learned a lot about authors and books that I did not know, but, fundamentally, about love and mourning, about life and death and how we all, even strangers, know each other.

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