Sometimes, the passing of a friend silences a voice in your own mind. A voice you weren't even always aware of, but one that was just there, at the back, ready to remind you of what really, truly matters. 

This newsletter was supposed to be a list of great books to buy for Christmas, but that will have to wait.

Today is a day of remembrance - for me and for the many, many people who were touched and influenced by the life and words of Herbert Pundik, who passed away last night at the age of 92.

Herbert Pundik was for 23 years the editor-in-chief of Politiken, one of the largest Danish newspapers, a post he retired from years ago, but a paper he continued writing for his entire life, and one with which he has become - and forever will be - synonymous.

Herbert Pundik was also a close friend of my family, and he and his wife Sussi always felt like ‘home’. Theirs was, like mine, a family split between the warm skies and hot heads of the Middle East and the cool winds and quiet minds of the Danish shores. 

As a young Jewish man, Herbert Pundik was pulled from his high school class in Copenhagen and sent to Sweden during the German occupation of Denmark, and after the war, he fought (literally) for the establishment of the state of Israel and later struggled with the idea of Israel as an occupational power, fighting alongside his son and daughter for the rights of Palestinians.  

Herbert Pundik was one of those people about whom so many of us are privileged to have great stories and even greater memories. 

One day, almost 20 years ago, Herbert called me to suggest I join ‘Humanity in Action’, an organisation he had co-founded. Humanity in Action educates young people in the subject of human rights and protection of minorities, and is in many ways a reflection of all that Herbert found important: tolerance, understanding, curiosity, dialogue and action. He believed that what you do must matter - and human rights mattered greatly to the man who believed that ‘once a refugee, always a refugee'. 

It is so often only in retrospect that we realize how we have been influenced and by whom. Perhaps because the strongest influence often comes from those who are not even trying to exert it, but are merely sharing their passions, their beliefs and their values for you to pick up or ignore. 

These are the people who show the way, even when you didn’t think you were lost. People with such integrity that you can learn from them whether you agree or disagree. The Herbert Pundiks of the world stand out - in life and in memory - perhaps because there are so few of them.

Thank you, Herbert, for your curiosity, your courage and your un-wavering insistence on tolerance and humanity. Thank you for showing us all how easy the right choice is, no matter how hard it might seem. 

On Monday, March 11, 2019 we had the great great pleasure of hosting the BBC programme, World Book Café, at Books & Company!

It was an honor to be chosen as the venue for this wonderful BBC series, which takes listeners around the world to meet local authors.

The programme is now on air and available online, and we highly recommend spending an hour in the company of delightful host, Lawrence Pollard, and Danish authors Dorthe Nors, Olga Ravn, Jonas Bengtsson and Caroline Albertine Minor ‘….reading, arguing, recommending and getting a portrait of Copenhagen’.

Click on the mic and enjoy!

As our 10th birthday fast approaches, one word from far beyond our shores perfectly describes what is near and dear to me and to all of us at Books & Company. That word is Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has its origins in several of the Bantu languages of Southern Africa and means : ‘I am because you are’, and in many ways that perfectly sums up my gratitude for all that we have been able to accomplish together since we opened our doors on a beautiful Saturday morning in May 2009.

Running an independent bookshop is an enormous privilege and one that I am thankful for every single day. 

A life among books, full of stories and histories that engage and enlighten, written by authors who go out of their way to share ideas and emotions is a life that keeps you on your toes. It’s a life that constantly challenges the status quo and allows you to see all that you knew yesterday in a brand new light today. A life among books teaches empathy and opens your heart to differences and similarities, to exuberant joy and to tremendous pain. 

And that’s just the books themselves!

A bookshop takes all that magic and puts in the hands of booksellers and readers. It gives us the wonderful task of passing on all those emotions, all that empathy and all that exuberance to the customers who wander through our door to the jingle of the little bell.

The true wonder of a bookshop happens in that meeting with the customer. In the search for the perfect book, the perfect read, the perfect gift. The book that isn’t too scary, that isn’t too romantic, that isn’t too serious or too funny, and never one that is too boring. The book that makes you think, makes you want to be a better person, makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you want to change the world. Done right, these are the best conversations.

Over the years we have had the great privilege of putting thousands of books in your hands and we take that job very seriously. We know that you will be sitting in a chair, on a bus, in the grass or on the beach reading what we suggested - and we want you to come back for more.

We also take very seriously our commitment to creating community. 

The past 10 years have brought so many wonderful people to the shop. Some have stayed in the country short term, some longer. Some visit monthly, some weekly and some even daily. Every single person has put their mark on the shop and made us who we are. The talks, the laughs, the commiseration; the hellos, the goodbyes and the ‘see you soons’. And in this wonderful age of easy communication, no-one is ever forgotten.

Running a bookshop is not a one woman show. It takes amazing, incredible, wonderful, talented, hard working, committed and dedicated colleagues and I have had the greatest fortune of working with them every day for the past 10 years. Thank you will never be enough!

And, of course, we need to have a birthday party, so we hope you will join us for a celebration on

Saturday, May 25 from 10:00 -15:00

In the spirit of Ubuntu, and in the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu : ’’A person is a person through other persons.’’

Thank you for allowing us to be who we are through you.

Warm regards,

Isabella & the staff of Books & Company 

The shop will be closed from Thursday April 18 to Monday April 22 (both days included). May we suggest we all take some time to STOP and smell the roses, frolic in the sun and catch up on some reading.

Enjoy!

Always exciting to see where the Man Booker International Prize is going to take us.

And the Shortlist nominees for 2019 are from:

Oman, Poland, Germany, France, Colombia and Chile.

In a time when facts are stranger than fiction, when one person’s truth is another person’s lie, when you wish that someone would call out ‘April Fools’ and bring the world back on track, we invite you to take a chance and venture out beyond your comfort zone.

We have wrapped and wrapped and wrapped lots of great, interesting, funny, sad, quirky, mind-bending, serious, scary, beautiful books in brown paper with no labels.

So mark your calendars and drop by the shop tomorrow 

Saturday March 30th and/or Monday April 1st 

where the window will be overflowing with books at 20,- a piece. 

The catch: you won’t know what you're getting, so what you get might be just what you didn’t know you were looking for.

We look forward to seeing you at the shop!
Your friendly Books & Company staff

Thank you!

Two little words, but if we could, we would shout them from the rooftops!

We would like to start the new year with a great - and grateful - thank you from the top of our bookshelves to the bottom of our hearts for your patronage, your support, your ideas, your smiles and your willingness to share with us your reading experiences and your lives. 

Thank you for being a part of the Books & Company community and for making 2018 such a succesful year. It goes without saying that we couldn’t have done it without you!

Despite the sunshine in the shop, it is difficult to ignore the fact that 2018 seemed shrouded in clouds and conflict. Indeed, the last couple of years have been full of pushing - and pushing back. 

While autocratic tendencies weaken in one corner of the world they pop up stronger in another, but leaders who pull apart rather than pull together have also been met with refusals to stand down, and heavy handed attempts at isolation have been met with greater insistence on community. 

At times, it seems that there is much to fret about, but it might also be worth changing lenses. As a customer recently pointed out in praise of British author P.G. Wodehouse: 'Anyone can see and write about ‘the holes in the road’, the real talent lies in seeing the humour.'

Yes, indeed, and perhaps we should focus less on the holes and more on the road itself?
There are many and very real societal issues in need of serious (re)consideration, issues of inequality and the environment to mention just two of the most pressing, and while talking about the lesser problems may be easier, certainly more popular and more politically opportune, it also serves as a distraction from the bigger, more complex discussions we need to have and the decisions we need to make about the direction we want to take.

So for 2019 let’s look up, avoid the holes and keep our eyes on the road.

Happy New Year!

Isabella & the staff of Books & Company
 

We hope you are home for the holidays enjoying time with your family, friends, good food a comfy chair and lots of great books! We are taking a few days off and look forward to seeing you back in the shop on January 2nd, 2019!