I only wanted one book! On the deadly attraction of bookshops

 There used to be a shop in Düsseldorf called Stern Verlag. It formed part of my imaginary heaven: an outdoor pool in a nice park, the sixth floor of KaDeWe (the large department store in the heart of Berlin, whose sixth floor is devoted to food) and Stern Verlag - the massive bookshop on various levels that you could just get lost in.

Sadly, that bookshop is no more. It overreached itself, expanding into adjacent commercial space and adding a cafe, and it crumbled. The space it used to occupy is still empty. It's a heartbreaking sight. 

I would always have to stay at least 200 metres away from Stern Verlag, because if I got any closer, it would magically draw me to it and I'd be forced to walk through its doors, whereupon I would enter into a trance and wander around there for an hour or two. You could even sit down in places and do some very intensive browsing. It was heaven. 

Naturally, even if I entered determined to buy only one book as a present, I would come out with more than originally planned.

In a similar vein, I toodled off to Mayersche bookshop on Saturday to buy one address book and one French book to read in April. (I've already got a French book to read for March.)

Mayersche is really not my favourite bookshop. For me, it's a massive escalator system in the middle of the shop with a few books huddled around it.

However, I managed to find a very small selection of address books and begrudgingly bought one. 

Then I bought one French book, and another, and finally a third. 

Turning round, I happened to see some interesting popular science titles in English. Oh, my...

In the end, besides the small, green address book, I came away with this haul:

1. La jeune fille et la nuit by Guillaume Musso

2. Completement crame by Gilles Legardinier

3. Deux soeurs by David Foenkinos
and

4. Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is Mostly Wrong by Eric Barker

5. Bulls**t Jobs: the Rise of Pointless Work and what we can do about it by David Graeber

6. Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Bannerjee and Duflo (a Nobel-prize-winning husband and wife team who wrote the fantastic book Poor Economics, a veritable eye-opener and must-read)

7. Natural Born Leaders: Our Incredible Capacity to Learn and How We Can Harness It by Alex Beard.

I've got a lot of reading to do, then. Not sure when I will cram it all in. At least I won't need to go near a bookshop in the near future.