The somewhat different bookshop

I visit Bücher-Brocky diagonally opposite Enge railway station every fortnight. There are an estimated 100,000 books in this basement and every day new boxes, cartons, crates, boxes, parcels and bags full of hardback novels, paperbacks, children's and travel books, tomes, art books, encyclopaedias, comics, magazines, but also CDs and DVDs end up in the spacious room. All the media for sale are donations that are received, checked, classified, placed on the shelves in sections and, of course, sometimes sorted out: a paperback costs CHF 3.50, a hardback CHF 4.50, illustrated books and other large-format books cost one franc more. I'm always excited about my finds, I think in advance about which new publications I'm interested in and I'm amazed at how often I land a hit. In recent months, I've bought the new novels by Stefanie Schneider, Monika Helfer and Annie Ernaux, among others. Charles Lewinsky's Half Beard, Bonnie Garmu's A Question of Chemistry and Ian McEwan's Lessons, all published in 2022 and 2023, are now on my shelf.

The Bücher-Brocky in Zurich was opened in 2000. Unlike the almost 20 second-hand bookshops in the city, it is not a non-profit organisation, but part of the private Bücher-Brocky company with other locations in Lucerne, Basel, Bern and Aarau. Reto Egli was there from the very beginning and is now in his 24th year. I ask him about his training, expecting a bookseller, publishing salesman, something like that. He replies: I'm a painter. He wanted to "create" in Zurich, the founder Clemens Ribler asked him if he wanted to join, they set up the space - and now he's still involved. That's what I call a change of scenery. Four employees now work here, sharing all the tasks from sifting to shelving, and there's also a woman on the team at weekends.

We're standing in the back room in front of a mountain of newly arrived novels. I ask Reto which books will make it onto the shelf. He says it depends on what the customers want, experience plays a role, well-known names and ultimately a feel for good books. The combination of knowledge and customer orientation works: there is no rubbish at all on the literature shelves, but a wide range of books organised by publisher or topic. Inevitably, a lot of things don't make it into the salesroom. But the leftovers are regularly collected, recycled and turned back into paper.

Afterwards, I walk home satisfied with "Magic of Silence", the new book by Florian Illies about the painter Caspar David Friedrich, which was published at the end of October 2023 and has just passed into my possession, just two months later.

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