BOOK SA – News

The festivities in honour of the second birthday celebration of The Book Lounge in Cape Town were, true to form, something to write home about. And there was no shortage of writers quaffing champagne to celebrate this award-winning independent book shop.

Margie Orford, one of the country’s leading crime writers, even managed to write a praise poem on the spot which she read aloud:

A BIRTHDAY SONNET FOR THE BOOK LOUNGE
(Sorry to mangle you so, Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

How do South African writers love thee? Let me count the ways.
We love thee to the depth and breadth and height
That passionate booksellers can reach, when feeling out of sight
At the bottom of the Big Chains’ shelf, hidden from our buyers.
We love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet read, by sun and candle-light.
We love thee freely, as writers supported in our Plight ;
We love thee purely, as you our profiles Raise.
We love thee with a passion put to use
In all your merry book launches, where You our books make Visible.
We love thee with a book-love we seemed to lose
With our faltr’ing sales, — We love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of improved royalties! — and, if You, O Book Lounge choose,
We shall next year but love thee better.

Having crossed over to the dark side (i.e. poetry), Margie was spontaneously appointed the Book Lounge’s Poet in Residence. There were certain conditions of the appointment which the proprietor, Mervyn Sloman, proposed:
1) When entering the BL, the poet in residence will not be angered by the following shout emerging from behind the counter: “Hark hither hark hither, poet Margie is thither”
2) When the poet in residence is spotted by one of our spies entering another bookshop, she will not call the police when challenged by a seemingly deranged person shouting “Poet Margie is out of her residence” who then proceeds to stone the poet with sharp and daggerous epithets.
3) And this is probably the clincher, the poet in residence is entitled to free cups of coffee in the Book Lounge, so long as she can demonstrate some poetic output while supping on the Americanos she loves so much she mentioned them in her latest collection of non-poetry Daddy’s Girl.
Orford agreed to and toasted the conditions immediately. She commences her new position forthwith.

“As the imminent arrival of our second birthday began to penetrate my consciousness a few weeks ago,” said Sloman, “I found myself wondering about what I would say on this occasion. Four words kept appearing before me: tired, frustrated, happy and proud. After repeated attempts to fight those words off and come up with some kind of coherent narrative, I eventually admitted defeat. So that is basically what I have to say to you tonight. I am tired, frustrated, happy and proud.

The reason I’m tired (and here I should say ‘we’) is that we’ve taken on a fair bit in the last year. I did some adding up last night and by my reckoning in the ten months from Feb 1 till tonight, we have hosted 115 launches, poetry readings and other book events. And I didn’t count in the various kids book launches we’ve done as part of our weekly Saturday morning story time. In addition to that, we’ve been happy to host various groups…book clubs, a craft group, PEG among others. We have also built mini book lounges at various events such as the CTBF, Tattoo convention and set up Book Lounge tables at a number of other events.

“This has also been the year of building partnerships. We are selling books through the Rainbow Experience at Mandela Rhodes, we are selling books and collaborating on events with La Cuccina restaurant in Hout Bay. Also in Hout Bay, our books are to be found at Freshly Crafted. We have set up a specialist architects bookstore at the Cape Institute For Architecture and most recently we have begun to partner with Kwalapa, an eco-friendly deli and restaurant at Montebello in Newlands.

“Looking forward, we are frantically pulling together a selection of books to complement the Dada exhibition which begins at Iziko in a couple of weeks and we have nailed down a further partnership with Idasa to supply their new venture Lobby Books with the books that will complement their new space round the corner from us. And lastly, this was the year we finally got it together to build a website. And yes, it took most of the year, and there are still teething problems, but it’s there. Ok, that’s the tired part…

“I’m frustrated – quite simply because there are so many wonderful books being published at the moment. As a bookseller it is a privilege to see all the amazing new work being produced in this country and beyond. But that privilege is coloured by the frustration of a 24 hour day, 5 or 6 hours of which generally get taken up by that waste of time called sleep.

“I cannot believe I have yet to get to the biography of Hani published more than a month ago, nor Jacob Dlamini’s Native Nostalgia. I got seventy pages into Barbara Kingsolver’s stunning new novel Lacuna and then put it on the back burner as one of my colleague’s had read it and I was under pressure to read other stuff. And Lorrie Moore’s first novel in years still awaits, as does the new Phillip Roth. Not to mention the pile of self published books and unpublished manuscripts waiting for feedback.

I’m happy – pretty much for the same reason. While we of course operate in the retail sector, we are not generic salespeople. We are professional booksellers. For better or worse, we believe that what we are selling makes a difference to people’s lives. And when we have so many amazing books to sell, we are happy.

“If someone comes in determined to buy the latest Dan Brown, we’ll take their money – we’re not that proud. But if that customer is prepared to have a conversation and we can convince them to buy Refuge, the latest novel by Andrew Brown, the better Brown, then there are high fives all round. And when that customer comes back asking for another recommendation, we know we’re doing our job.

“And lastly, I’m proud. After we walked off with three awards at the annual PASA/SABA Sefika Awards in August, I felt greatly indebted to Margie for giving me the line that “it’s easy to be cynical about awards, until you win them”. Cynical as I may be, those awards meant a lot to a bookshop that was just 20 months old at the time.

“I’m also immensely proud of my colleagues who put their all into this project. What we as the Book Lounge offer is a collective effort – a hybrid to which everyone contributes something different, something singular which adds to the collective offering.

“But mostly I’m proud of the relationships we have built over these last two years. Relationships with writers, with publishers and perhaps most importantly, with readers. We set out two years ago, to create a space in which book lovers would feel comfortable. A space in which the writers we respect would feel loved as they should be, a space in which the readers we suspected and hoped were out there would feel loved as they should be, a space in which the publishers we rely on would feel loved as they should be. To some extent, I think we’ve succeeded. Thanks for your fucking amazing support.”

Sloman handed the Book Lounge bag which had been signed by authors who had given talks or readings at the shop since the first birthday bash, over to Mike Nicol, crime-writer-turned-auctioneer. In a bid to raise funds for SAMLA, the South African Mobile Library Association, Nicol opened the bidding. Not satisfied with the uppermost bid coming in at R2000, he said he was cancelling the auction and would be passing the bag around. He asked for everybody present to dig into their wallets and to put a donation into the bag. Soon R2 960 was gathered and the bag was included with the donation.

The Book Lounge award for Bookish Brilliance was awarded to Ben Williams, Liesl Jobson, Sophy Kohler and the whole crew at BOOK SA. Sloman said, “The citation was awarded for: Creating a virtual home for South African book lovers; Their commitment to South African literature; Working nearly as hard as we do; and For their all round bookish brilliance.”

He acknolwedged the contributions of Leopards Leap throughout the year for their copious quanities of wine that had vivified every event. He also expressed his gratitude to the following publishers who donated cupcakes for the birthday party: Jonathan Ball, Modjaji, Real Books, NB, Pan MacMillan, Penguin, RHS, Jacana, Book Promotions, Patricia Schonstein and Don Pinnock. He also thanked the publishers who donated books for the lucky draw.

“Thanks to my parents who continue to help with my kids in the relative absence of their father. Thanks to my wife Anneke, for taking on the double role of mostly single parent and primary bread winner. Somehow next year will be different. Thanks to the best bunch of lunatic booksellers the world has ever seen. And thanks to you. All of you. I hope to clink glasses with every one of you. And I hope you all buy a book or three.”

Birthday Party Gallery