Happy Books

Inside Happy Books, ©Johannes Bjorner 2012

One of the unexpected pleasures we had in Barcelona was stumbling upon a store called Happy Books. Given the name and the bright colors of children's books and cookbooks on display in bins out front, I thought at first that it was a bookstore for light reading only. The store was crowded (this was the Sunday before Christmas) but we made our way in to browse, and then we went farther and farther in. True, I found a good share of light reading (pizza cookbooks in a circular shape, for example) and young adult books (YA classic editions of literature from around the world, including Lazarillo de Tormes, a Spanish classic that I had read part of). As I got farther in, however, through room after room leading to the next, I found many forms of enlightenment. The clean, modern architecture gave way to older, more historic, and beautifully restored stone and brick arches--but still with excellent lighting. We browsed for a long time, and we stood in line to make a purchase. As we left I asked if the store was open tomorrow (Christmas Eve day). We were happy to hear that it was.

But we never got back to Happy Books, because later that evening we discovered Casa del Libro just a few steps down from our hostal on the Rambla. Another large bookstore, with sections for English and French and German books, in addition to Spanish. By this time it was ready to close, so we went back there the next day. Twice, as I recall--once early in the morning and then again later at night. We are obviously starved for the ambiance of large, well-equipped bookstores, and I am glad that by now in my stay in Spain I have gotten to the point where I can browse and buy comfortably in Spanish. We left eventually without all the books we wanted--size of luggage being one consideration, but also the realization that while some things look compelling when on holiday with loads of time looming, they too often lie languishing when you return to everyday life and have lots of other things to do.

Yesterday, however, we were suddenly "in need" of a travel book, or at least in need of browsing some travel books. Lo and behold, and thanks to the Web, we found that Casa del Libro has many casas, and one of them is in Alicante city. It was a beautiful, warm day for a drive, so off we went. As we approached our destination we found a parking lot with no difficulty and dived in--the rule in Alicante being to "park first, then walk."  We set off on foot for the store and found it with only a little backtracking. We browsed for an hour, and limited ourselves to one selection. "Should it be wrapped?" I was asked at the cashiers, because everyone else was buying gifts for the Reyes Magos to deliver that evening. The Three Kings bypassed our house last night, and that's just as well, because we have already had a very full holiday season, planned and unplanned. One of the unexpected pleasures of the new year is the discovery of a good multilingual bookstore within an hour's drive of our house. And close to a fine little restaurant we had seen during the walk from the garage, where we treated ourselves to the menu del dia, a larger-than-normal luncheon for us, which made the day all the more enjoyable.