Sunday 9 September 2012

Books! Books! Books!

Once a year, in one of the oldest parts of town (centuries older than the actual town, the small village of Hoheneck eventually grew together with Ludwigsburg and is now a suburb of it), a book market is held on the narrow streets and alleyways, some of them cobbled, between the old timbered houses, around the church and on the village square with its fountain. It is not only a picturesque place well worth a visit on its own, but the market is very popular for all kinds of book lovers - professional collectors of first editions, avid readers or simply people like us who want to make room on their shelves but do not chuck out books like other unwanted stuff.
View across the street from the back of our stall
The annual book market has been going on for 25 years now, and for a few years, my family used to have a stall there. We usually took turns in manning it and quite enjoyed it, but then for one reason or other, we didn't go for three consecutive years.
This time, though, we registered for a 3 m stall, and prepared for the big day!

Here are the two crates of books that were my contribution; all in all, we had six or seven such crates full, about half of them English and the other half German.

The market means an early start; setting up of the stalls begins at 7.00 in the morning, and it was still very cold at that time (9 Celsius at most!), so I was covered in several layers of clothes and quite glad of each and every one of them.

As the day wore on, it warmed up rather nicely, and in the afternoon, when the sun came round the corner, it became so warm people were looking for shade.

We sold relatively well (about half of what we'd brought), and everything at really low prices; we let go most of our books for 1 Euro each, or 2 Euro if people chose three paperbacks. Only some of the large format coffee table books went for a bit more, but nothing at our stall was expensive, since that wasn't the point of us going to the market.

People were friendly and chatty, we exchanged recommendations for books or shared our views of what we'd read same as they had, and even met a man who came to the market only to find antique books "of the right size" - he doesn't read them, all he wants for them is to sit on his shelves decoratively! My sister later said she would have liked to tell him that, in fact, one can actually read books, you know...

Our parents came to the market at around lunch time and brought food, coffee in a thermos flask and wonderful home-made raspberry muffins, which were most welcome!

After such an early start, a long day out in the open and talking to so many people, we were both quite knackered when at 5.00 pm the market officially ended. We packed up our remaining books, the table and chairs, and my sister drove us home.

It was fun, though, and I think we'll go again next year :-) 

PS: I forgot to mention that I'll be away for a week from tomorrow onwards; RJ and I have booked once again a week on Majorca, hoping to find better weather and friendlier hotel staff than when we were at Lake Garda in June...!

25 comments:

  1. Hello Meike:
    After a somewhat cold start, this sounds to have been great fun and a rather good way of disposing of unwanted books.

    We do hope that you will both have a really lovely holiday on Majorca with wonderfully warm, sunny days.

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    1. Hello Jane and Lance,
      we did have a mostly lovely holiday on Majorca - with the exception of two days and nights that RJ had to spend in hospital. More about that later, but all's well now.

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  2. I wish I could have been there!
    How nice of your parents to bring those raspberry muffins. I just bet that went down a treat.
    Poor you, having to spend a WHOLE WEEK on Majorca! HA HA! Seriously, I hope you both have a wonderful time! Look forward to a post about it.

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    1. Those raspberry muffins must have been the envy of all the stall holders near us :-) Nobody else had their Mum bringing them home-made food!

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  3. I enjoy very much reading your blog and seeing your photos. Thank you for sharing parts of your life and exerpts from your mental library.

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    1. Thank you for stopping and leaving such a kind comment, Mary!

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  4. What an absolutely perfect day!!

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  5. Sounds like a good idea and looks like a good place for it!
    Wish you a good holiday.

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  6. So wonderful! I wish I had been there. Just in your stall I saw several interesting looking books (although I should have been there selling books, not buying them) and some I couldn't quite read the titles to, alas. (You had a book in English called Songs of the Police? Non-fiction or otherwise?) What an enthusiastic salesperson you look in that one photo. I'm surprised you would have had a single book remaining. And what wonderful parents you have! They inspire me, truly.

    Have fun in Majorca. My parents were there once, in the seventies, and came back with wonderful happy memories.

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  7. Ah, how disappointing. It looks as though this is a musical group called The Police. In my mind I had such an interesting image of policemen, getting together every week to sing!

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    1. A bit like the coal miners' choirs up in Yorkshire, maybe? They are quite good. But no, it is a book with sheet music and lyrics of songs from the group The Police, as you found out.
      My parents truly are wonderful!

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  8. We have book sales in the church hall (it always rains on sales day and we need to stay under cover). the proceeds go to charity.

    Have a lovely time in Majorca. Although why you need to go there when you have such a lovely town and countryside around you?

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    1. Thank you, Friko! Town and country around here are beautiful enough to make me love coming home every time, that's true, but I also love to travel and see different places. And... the Sea is quite far away from here, you know :-)

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  9. I love book sales like these, and always find some books to buy.

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    1. Hello Terra, I'd find books to buy, too, if I allowed myself to roam the market and look at the other stalls more closely... but I didn't :-)

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  10. I can imagine myself spending all my profits on books from someone else's stall! Enjoy your break - I hope you get better weather than in Italy, too.

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    1. We had one thunderstorm and two rainy nights, but since RJ spent two nights in hospital, the weather wasn't as important to us just then, and it was sunny and beautiful again afterwards.

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  11. What a great book event! We would love to attend an event like that! Enjoy your vacation!!!

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    1. Thank you, Mary! I am sure you would have found something or other at our stall :-)

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  12. This sounds like a great idea! Sounds like a fun event.

    Hope you are having fun in Majorca!

    e

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    1. Thanks, Elizabeth! It was a fun event, and we did have fun on Majorca, in spite of the scary night when RJ had to go to hospital.

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  13. Coming from a family that cannot resist books, book shops, book fairs and, in fact anything to do with books, I would definitely have been there. You made me laugh with your use of the word 'knackered'. Your command and use of the English language is so perfect that when you use the occasional slang word like that I am always amused: particularly where, in this case, it is a word I use quite a lot.

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    1. I am sure you wouldn't have left without a bag full of books, Graham. Of course, I'd have given you a special discount (and maybe even a raspberry muffin if you had been there in time)!
      As for the occasional slang word - blame my late husband for that; I don't think I learned "knackered" and other such words at school :-)

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