Financials – now turn off Sweden's largest second-hand bookshop

"Financials – now turn off Sweden's largest antiquarian bookseller"

"We have had our time – there are other ways to get books”"

"This is a kulturartikel which is a part of Aftonbladet's opinionsjournalistik."

"Alfa antiquarian bookshop in the centre of Stockholm does not look great out the outside, and barely even when you step inside. It is only when the store manager Henrik Einarsson shows me around in the kulvertarna that you seriously get scared to get lost. 800 square meters and 200 000 titles, which now will be zero titles. One of the largest second-hand bookshop has begun its last chapter. A sale is going on until the summer with all the titles for half the price."

"I see bokryggarna, there are authors who seem forever consigned to antikvariaten. Theodor Kallifatides has always a small section."

"Alfa holds everything from precious classics to obscure titles that no sale in the world will abate. It is well it is sorgligast with this sort of closures, that most books simply don't seem to interest people anymore. But you should be careful with nostalgia, Henrik Einarsson is in all cases strikingly osentimental. "

" I am most surprised that we have been able to remain for so many years. My colleagues have worked hard and sacrificed much to not put down a long time ago. "

"It almost sounds like you think it's nice? "

"henrik's answer comes quickly:"

" It's a little nice that it is over. We have had our time. There are other ways to get books."

"We sit far inside the maze, a common room that is almost soundproof because of all the bookshelves surrounding the table. I think that he is the main character in Nick Hornbys High fidelity, but with books instead of dvds. Just like you would want an employee in an bokantikvariat should be – thorough, knowledgeable, careful, speak low and well-argued. "

"He had just taken his bachelor of arts degree in comparative literature. The year was 1996. Henry called Alfa and asked the chance if they had someone who worked extra. He provjobbade in three days. Twenty-five years later he is left behind and preparing for the end. There he got experience in the beginning was the big expansionsperioden, antikvariatets gold-age. The most was twelve people. They were out on the town and bought books, people came by and left. Flow was ceaseless."

"Just after the turn of the millennium started in internet sales take off, and then the decline has been constant. The last few weeks, since the big sale began, has Henry been like to travel back in time, against the very years when he barely had the time to sit down. Whatsoever let the work more physical than I imagined."

"– Yes dear. I have crept in the basement corridors and been on the dusty vindskontor. Sizzling hot and freezing cold by turns. Estates and large floors with lots of books. It went through, picked out, and it was hard to pack and carry. Nervous beneficiaries and strange people. "

"It's a bygone time in Stockholm he describes, environments that are downloaded from a Klas Östergren-novel. A regular customer had bequeathed to just Henrik would go through his book collection. "

" When I started, there was still the big paradvåningarna left. The main floor I was in was a tiorummare on Sturegatan. There needed to be truly on the way out. It was room after room, and then came a further three rooms where the servants had lived. But there are also ursmå apartments with exquisite literature. Just because it is a good address, it does not mean that it is good books."

"I have aged with the customers. Småkillarna who came in and bought Bigglesböcker is a beautiful day gigantic and has fjunmustascher and will be reading Kafka and Kierkegaard."

"Weird people, yes. Speaking of High fidelity has been a big part of the core business started from what can not be described as other than oddballs. Henrik shakes a little on the head."

" There was a whole variation of people which is a bit odd and those that are ... In the 90's and 00's it was very mentally ill, who ran into this. Some got to know, and a part was healthy. I have aged with the customers. Småkillarna who came in and bought Bigglesböcker is a beautiful day gigantic and has fjunmustascher and will be reading Kafka and Kierkegaard, and now they come with their own books to be submitted. The old customers get older and older and so they will not at all in the end."

"It is easy to horrified antikvariatens death. A few years ago, it was the venerable Rönnells in Stockholm that was threatened by closure. When rescued, including the people's outrage and donations."

"Rönnells have since found more legs to stand on, with a lot of events and other sales. Just to be a bookstore is not enough. "

"It reminds a little of kulturtidskrifterna, who constantly have to collect signatures in order to maintain its raison d'être. The poet Emil Boss writes on Alfa's Facebook page: ”It was very sad to hear. I will rarely, and is now but when I was in my teens, it was a holy place for me”."

"A little storm blows up, they survive the day, but honestly, how many rituals have you started to subscribe to since then? Personally, I had no idea that the Alpha existed. "

"– It is a little sad, now people will come here and say that it is a remarkable place that they had wanted to visit more often, " says Henrik on sale."

"No exact figures on how many bookstores as booms again is hard to come by, but Pontus Soldén in Swedish antikvariatföreningen says that the established names are pretty strong. The less, however, many bookstores and ”undergrowth” as Soldén call it, have it harder."

"A loss is in any case impossible to angle or deny, and it is the skills that hammered out at a place like Alpha. Very possible to get on Amazon or the Amazon, but not everything. Henry remembers how the two customers began to weep when he found a book that they had been looking for a long time. "

"– It can get into anyone searching for a children's book they had when they were small. ”But I don't remember who wrote it or what it's called, but it was yellow and had a crocodile on the cover”."

"I go around and stir a bit awkward at bokryggarna while the photographer gives a directive to a not totally comfortable, but amenable, Henry. "

"Pull out a title at the coincidence. I walk in the wildlife kingdom from 1944, by Stig Cederholm. A painted cover, which shows a green forest, where a man dressed in equally green clothes walking with her dog. Scroll a bit, Stig Cederholm writes about otters in northern sweden. I put it back."