This blog was initially begun under very different circumstances to those in which it is now continued.
Having been ‘switched on’ to books in my teens by my history teacher, over many decades I have purchased books to make small collections. Eventually I began selling surplus volumes due to lack of shelf space, and also buying and selling volumes that I picked up on the feeling they had been undervalued and could be found a more appreciative home, and thus help support my collecting forays.
Gemma Xifré opened her bookshop, Llibreria Antiquària Maldà, in 2015. I first met Gemma in 2018 upon arriving to live in Barcelona. As many persons who knew Gemma better than I have said, Gemma was a warm, compassionate and generous person. She had a sense of humor that transcended southern and northern European cultures.
As I was seeking to spend more of my time in and around books, Gemma offered me the opportunity to collaborate with her on producing sales catalogues. Gemma had a wide stock of books and paper related items, and was continually acquiring new stock. It was a running joke that the moment there was some space in the bookshop to work on cataloguing, it would promptly be claimed by new items also requiring descriptive attention. To be clear, this was not unfettered accumulation, Gemma always had in her mind ideas of how and where to move on that which she had taken in. Gemma’s bookshop was exactly the kind of second-hand and antiquarian bookshop I would be, and still am, drawn to – the scent of old leather and paper, with a tangible atmosphere that there were treasures to be unearthed.
Gemma worked with passion, enthusiasm and energy. Her passion for books was transmitted through her life. She was always willing to stop and engage with customers no matter their interest, including those (many) who came in off the street with ‘old’ books to sell and who were sympathetically turned away. The atmosphere Gemma had instilled in her bookshop clearly struck visitors to Barcelona as, on more than one occasion, we had browsers and customers ask if they could take photographs inside the shop.
This blog was to be one of the new 2020 innovations as part of our collaboration to support the bookshop. The prologue was written before Gemma’s passing. She never had the opportunity to read it to tell me if she felt it would set the right tone for what was to come. It has been left as originally written. The blog “The Benefits of Taking a Break from Cataloguing” was drafted in the days before Gemma’s passing and has been slightly amended in this light. I feel Gemma would have found it mildly amusing that so much could be made out of items priced at so little (a few euros). But therein lay the value of Gemma’s creation, packed shelves and well stocked tables and floor-space, where value could be found in so-called ephemera as well as in the (more obvious) gilt-edged and tall standing full-leather bindings.
For an appreciation of Gemma published by the l’Escola de Llibreria, Universitat de Barcelona click here.
(A local artist’s 3-D model of the entrance to Gemma’s bookshop.)