So on Friday I decided that much like my motto in life (not living the same day twice) that I will take off work (I am a Financial Controller) and head in a direction. Now I was gonna be spontaneous yall, but I wanted to fit in a number of things in my off day so of course the first thing I had to do was find a location and I decided on Somerset West.
As you will remember from my intro post I love Oscar Wilde and on my 21st birthday after searching for a secondhand copy of his complete works for ages, I found myself in a little bookshop with a closing out sale. I literally bumped into a shelf and BOOM! this book falls smack bang on my foot: The complete works of Oscar Wilde, first edition, yellowed, smelled like the dusty shelf it fell from and had little notes all along the passages- I was in love 😍 😍 this happened to be one of my favourite days, so I decided I needed to find a gem again.
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Some of the most amazing conversations I have ever had was with strangers and you find yourself walking away from this very real and incredible conversation and only realizing afterwards that you never caught the person's name, exactly as it was with this Tannie (Tannie is a sign of respect in Afrikaans when you are speaking to an older lady) She is 86 years old and has run this shop for 45 years. She has been a single parent since she was newly married at the age of 28 years old and had a 6 month old baby. Her husband battled and lost against kidney cancer and she never remarried. "Why try for gold a second time when you hit platinum the first". The most incredible thing about this woman is that she buried her entire family, battled and has been in remission for 12 years and managed to put her son and grandkids (2 boys) through school and college, all whilst running a second hand book exchange.
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Now 45 years ago, she said, this place was run by an couple and back in those days it was the shop next door (about a third the size) and it was a comic bookstore. She use to go in there once a month to buy comics for her son and after a while befriended the old couple (who had a daughter her age) and the two of them started running the store when it was time for the old couple to retire. Anna (whose name I did catch), ran this store with her best friend until 8 years ago when she was also taken by the cancer and now this wonderful Tannie comes in 7 am in the morning and lovingly tend to the store that she has known more than half her life. I spent 2 hours there and it wasn't just the amazing company she provide, the store really has something for EVERYONE
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Whilst I was there she served 5 different people, she had Helmut Lotti playing in the background (not softly, this woman loves her some classical music) and she had stories, laughs and advise to share with every individual. I have never been so happy in the presence of a stranger, she made me feel right at home! One of her favourite things to do is to sit on the floor of her own shop and read a book, her point of view is that she can't right well tell anyone what is good and what is rubbish unless she had her nose in it herself. I am an avid reader guys (4 books on average a week since I was old enough to read, being poor meant you chased adventure in the pages before you grew up to chase them for real)and I still lose myself in those adventures whenever I can! As much as I love to claim how clued up I am in so many different genres and authors, this Tannie was dropping names of authors I have NEVER heard before! It was inspiring watching someone be as passionate about her job as she is. For every question she had an answer, for every person that wanted to try something new she had just the thing. I had to test her magic!
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Now being part of the STEEMIT community and chatting on different discords you will have notice Pennydread springs from the paperback novels you got for a penny back in the day and that they were horrors/ thrillers about vampires and the lot including Frankenstein, knowing this about me, don't you think her MAGIC in finding me the two most perfect novels were spot on?
I hope this posts inspires you to seek this place out if you are ever in the area, go and find your own magic if you are not and to be someone's magic whenever you can be.
this is a wonderfull article, warming the heart of every booklover. I would love to visit this bookstore and dive into it, chatting with that lady about books worth reading. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting it always feels great when people enjoy what I write! I gave you a follow and will be sure to look out for your posts as well, perhaps we can exchange books ;)
This is so great! What a special experience. When we were kids my mom and I would do something similar every Friday, taking the book we had read that week to swop for a new book for the coming week.
Sigh. Life was so different before all the distractions 😥
Is this a proper exchange, ie, take your old books and get new ones?
So yes and no, if the tannie has a lot of the same authors or books she tends not to buy it from you if it is originally your book but if you buy her books she allows you to exchange or if you bring in books she doesn't already have or authors she hasn't heard of as well'- so she is selective which is actually great coz then you get a biiiig variety! You and I can go?
Absolutely! I do have a whole spare ‘oom of books waiting for me though 😂
Oh my God I love this place !!! I WANT THEM ALL !!! :D
It is gorgeous isnt it! But with all your travels for that amazing new job I am sure you can get a trip to Ireland in, tell them it's work related and necessary :P