by Cygne Sauvage
The bookstore I always frequented inside the campus of my college alma mater has an impressive and extensive collection of volumes, rare CDs, and magazines not usually carried by those in similar trade situated in commercial hubs.
What’s more remarkable about it is that it fits all these items in orderly fashion within the wooden perimeter of no more than 20 square meters including the space for the cashier and his antique adding machine. Its compilation of editions and reading materials is indeed a delight for bibliophiles that this modest stall housed in the University’s student arcade has been the haunt of nerds and geeks.
It is rare for a bookstore of this kind to survive the business outside of an institution of learning. My countrymen commonly don’t possess the penchant to read books such that the term “bookstore” is generically referred to as where school supplies, trendy stationery and notebooks , including toys could be purchased.
But not our little bookstore. It is not for someone who swoons over Nicholas Sparks’ stories or Mills and Boons series. Rather it caters to those who patiently leaf through the pages of Nabokov’s or Gunter Grass’ novels. Not once has the proprietor failed to deliver an order for an edition of a classic or an award-winning novel, or an academically acclaimed work in various discipline.
Thus this little bookstore has become one of the essential reasons in coming back to where I obtained my graduate and post-graduate diplomas. Passing by “our little bookstore” at least twice a month has been a ritual, acquiring tomes of both fiction and non-fiction that gradually built a tsundoku.
Tragedy struck the structure that provides the roof to this hangout of intellectuals. No stall was spared by the fire that razed it to the ground. We were all alarmed at this loss. It felt like our indispensable cord to our beloved alma mater has been severed; a glorious chapter of our life completely erased.
I could only try to gather information from concerned groups on social media. Three months after the tragic blaze a friend posted that our little bookstore is holding out in a portion of a vacant lot earmarked by the university to temporarily shelter the hapless businesses. The collection is protected by a medium-sized tent like structure no bigger than its original size. Lined up in the interior are shelves and tables filled with books, a big number of which were saved by students and faculty who braved the conflagration on that fateful night.
A queue of bibliophiles awaits outside the stained fabrics that provide the protective shield to the volumes of paperbacks and hardbound materials when I paid my visit to our little bookstore. I patiently stood on my slot until I was accommodated.
Despite the seeming impermanence of its setting I’m quite certain our little bookstore would always be around.
Suggested Reading: The 10 Most Unconventional Bookstores In The World https://www.bustle.com/p/the-10-most-unconventional-bookstores-in-the-world-44840
The Well-Read Company 