Fiction about bookstores and libraries

I remember when and how bookstore cafes arrived because it is part of my reading experience. They arrived in the ‘80s when the number of readers dropped drastically, acting as an invitation so that people who had never opened a book in their lives could find the perfect excuse to enter a bookstore. Sometimes, they would have a quick coffee, feeling completely out of their element, without a television or background music to entertain them. Other times, and not as often, they thought about buying a book as a gift for a loved one with whatever was trendy back then. Like someone buying clothes or checking out whatever is playing at the movies, without showing the slightest preference. For all of this, they relied on the bookseller.

Every male bookseller’s dream was to set up a book club with the air of the old casinos. Every female bookseller’s dream was to set up a book club where no man could enter, unless he was trans and promised to remain mute. I was lucky enough to meet a straight couple—everything has to be labeled now—both inveterate readers, who set up a bookstore in the late ‘80s in the Eixample of Barcelona, almost reaching the upper part of Diagonal Avenue.

And it was by chance. Because in reality, I was trying to buy a telescope at the department store on the other side of the corner. I lived devouring books in a solitary bungalow in the coastal hills, far from the city lights and traffic. Reading at night was thrilling, and sometimes I rested my eyes by stargazing. Hence, I wanted to acquire a telescope that wasn’t a toy.

The small bookstore was close to the chamfered corner, wedged between cafes, parking exits, and other businesses. And the storefront was a windowpane framed by green wooden slats, where pastries had likely once been abundant and the bowls of hot chocolate served, since it kept the same name as the defunct business, The Chocolate Party. I mention this because the mix-up caught my attention at the time and made me browse the lovely window display. In the back, consumed by his reading and without noticing me, sat the bookseller.

If there was one thing I detested, it was booksellers who sold books they didn’t read. It was like going to a record store where the clerk had no ear for music. When I walked in, the old shop bell rang. Since I couldn’t find what I wanted, I struck up an animated conversation with the bookseller, who, as he listened to me, jotted down the order I was placing. I was the only customer he had, and he gave me his full attention. And I promised to drop by soon, before locking myself in the nearby cinematheque.

Some years later, I also ended up frequenting the university library, totally circular and glass-enclosed in the shape of a flying saucer. I would wait for the girl I lived with to finish her shift, a shy librarian with blond curls who, when she spoke, did so in whispers, while shooting you dead with enormous blue eyes that she couldn’t close even when sleeping by my side.

Sometimes, I would make the entire round of the library, as the panoramic view of the city was impressive. The place seemed as silent to me as the library where the angels Damiel and Cassiel wander in Wings of Desire, alongside other angels, which served them as a sounding board to hear the inner monologues, sometimes overlapping, in other languages, the unspoken thought.

I wasn’t an angel like the one Bruno Ganz played. But I craved the never-ending flow of unspoken thought. Because there was nothing sexier than a woman who loved to read. It was the first time I was with someone who shared that passion as intensely as I did. I guess I became a hopeless sapiosexual.

The pastoral evenings we shared were far more creative than the usual emotional melodramas. Thanks to her, I read a divine madman like Friedrich Hölderlin. And I also learned the fate of the books that nobody reads, which until then I was completely ignorant of: the sordid graveyards of forgotten books.

Between the small bookstore and the flying