We decided to play the Q&A game with the ABC staff, and asked all sorts of bookish questions. In the coming weeks we will be posting their (sometimes cheeky!) answers here on the blog, so you can learn a little more about us.
Enjoy!
This time around we talk to Matty, a newby bookseller in Amsterdam.
What are your top 3 favorite books or authors?
It is very unfair to ask me to choose only three, so you’re getting six.
Just be happy it isn’t more!
Fire and Hemlock by Dianna Wynne Jones. My most beloved book as a child. I’ve read it at least 15 times.
The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Quinn
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Geek Love by Katherin Dunn
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. I even have a tattoo of the posthorn from this on my right palm.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
What is your favorite genre to read?
Got to be Sci-Fi. My dad was crazy about it and carefully trained me from a small child to be into it, too.
In which literary world would you like to live/go on vacation?
I always liked the idea of the Earth in the The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard. All that heat and humidity and being made small by nature and how that might alter our sense of self. I love it! Also, exploring a
destroyed London by boat is always a theme I’m going to be into. I also loved that in FreakAngels by Warren Ellis. Not sure how long I’d last though!
What is your favorite bookish animal (fiction or nonfiction)?
Nijntje, just because she was the first thing I ever successfully read in Dutch!
Do you have any reading tips for our customers?
I read every morning in my swinging chair on my (covered) balcony. I highly recommend that, especially if you have difficulty sitting still as I do!
What non-book item at ABC can you not pass by without looking at it?
I cannot help but run my hands through the box of loose dice on the 1st floor every time I walk past. The sound they make is so nice, they feel lovely on your hands, and they’re all so beautiful.
Which book changed your (look on) life?
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Lessons on the viciousness and randomness of life and how unbelievably fortunate or unfortunate the circumstances of your birth can be.
What is your favorite part of being a bookseller?
I think I mostly like talking to customers about their books, but there’s something especially satisfying about helping someone find the last copy of a book they really want or need.
And a special mention for peeling the price stickers off when I have to wrap up books. If you use the special sticker-removing knife, it slides off like butter – unbelievably satisfying.
What’s your secret for choosing the books you buy for your sections?
I don’t have one yet, but I’ve thought a lot about it already. I reckon it’s got to be a pinch of keeping up with new stuff coming out, bolstering the classics, and with the added sprinkling flavor of special treats from your reading past. Also, talking with your customers about things they find special, too. It’s so good when you find someone with similar tastes and they have something for you that you didn’t already know about. A customer recently waited around for me while I was on my break to insist that I read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and I didn’t feel like I could say no considering! That sort of moment is really cool.
