The Book with a Phone Number
It turned up in a backstreet shop in Valencia that still smells faintly of floor cleaner and last century. Paperbacks along the skirting, hardbacks shoulder to shoulder at eye level, a low radio tuned to a station that only plays songs you half-remember from lifts. I wasn’t meant to be there. I’d gone out for […]
A Sunday at El Rastro
I got there early enough to see tarps come off tables like someone lifting lids. The first heat was already climbing the cobbles and a seller was thumbing a stack of paperbacks the way a dealer checks cards—bent, quick, half-distracted. I did a slow lap to stop myself buying the first decent thing I saw. […]
The Box by the Bed (and the First Bad Purchase)
The library began as a cardboard box by the bed because I didn’t have shelves yet and because I was pretending this wasn’t becoming a thing. A box is temporary. A box says, “I’m just passing through.” It also says, “Go on then, buy three more.” First bad purchase: a sun-faded paperback from a Sunday […]