BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Filled with stacks of aging books and overflowing with volumes of centuries-old texts, Mexico City's antique bookshops provide a perfect distraction from the empty, eerie atmosphere of a city recovering from an anti-epidemic lockdown.
As the city's shops and restaurants slowly begin to roll up their shutters following government-mandated closures, the bookstores' doors remain open wide in the Centro Histórico, tempting passersby with good bargains and strange curiosities.
Nearly ten stores stand side-by-side on Calle Donceles, a short stretch near the Zócalo between streets Palma Norte and República de Brasil.
Some offer new copies of books along with the used, while others offer exclusively well-worn texts and antique collector editions. All welcome any bibliophile to spend an afternoon sifting through the cracked leather bindings and yellowing pages.
In Bibliofilia, on Donceles 78, a cluster of small, open rooms filled with more than 20,000 titles lead deep into the back of the store.
Mercurio López Casillas, who works at Bibliofilia, proudly shows the curious customer his pricey antiques. Removing from its glass case a fragile copy of a 1701 drama worth 70,000 pesos, he said successful collectors have donated most of the store's overall stock.
For the more realistic client, the store boasts a scattered array of more than 30 subjects and the works of hundreds of novelists. Books and magazines sell as low as 30 pesos, though most cost around 200 pesos.
El Laberinto, next door at Donceles 74, offers a wider range of older and recent publications, all used. Tall ceilings and ascending floor levels hold mostly novels and social science books in the 50 to 120 peso price range; a multitude of other subjects are also available.
The shop's selection mirrors the quirky and sporadic collections of its Donceles counterparts: small stacks of dulled purple pocket biographies on Mexican revolutionaries; thick volumes of 800-peso encyclopedias; and nearly 200-year-old books on Mexico's penal system.
Store employee Arturo Meneses Román said most customers request authors like Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez and Octavio Paz, but that the shop holds many foreign authors, such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway.
El Gran Remate, across the street on Donceles 81-1, sells new, used and bargain books.
Tables in the back marked "barata," or "cheap," offer a hodgepodge of titles for 10 pesos or less, including small copies of dramas and poetry and how-to pamphlets for learning karate or paper airplane construction.
Novelists span the alphabet from authors Héctor Aguilar Camín to José Zorrilla and cost 100 pesos or more. Glass cases contain 5,000-peso texts from the 1800's and feature titles such as the third edition of Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote de la Mancha."
Bibliofilia, El Laberinto and El Gran Remate are open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., though Saturday and Sunday hours vary by store.
No comments:
Post a Comment