This blog expresses everything at its very best what booksellers go through. I am soooo happy that it actually exists! Why? Because I also am a trained bookseller or “Buchhändler”. The first four years of my professional life after A-levels prepared me for all kinds of human species that I would encounter again and again throughout my later career. And I would do this job again without hesitation, if it would only be paid a little bit better… Why that now? Booksellers, they read all day, don’t they? Ehhhh…. nope. During my time as a bookseller I actually started to read less, simply because after stressful days like for example in Christmas time you do not really necessarily feel the need for reading.

That however did not prevent me from filling my shelves with books that I would like to read – at some point later. That resulted in me still having LOTS of unread books left, almost 5 years after I swapped book paradise and Germany for England and the online world and now Sweden and the online world. Since I moved to Norrköping I read a bit more, though, so there is hope for all the unread volumes that they get de-dusted at some point soon!

Oh yes, and this one is a bit older version on paper but also very much worth reading if anybody fancies. 

Being a good bookseller also means that you need to be passionate about what you are doing. You need to love books of course (and maybe calendars like I did and still do) but even more importantly you need to love dealing with customers and also to do quite a good range of things that come with working in a shop. No day is like the other, and if you think a day will be in a certain way then you can be sure it turns out to be entirely different.

And all that in combination was (and still is) to me the beauty of that profession.

In Germany you actually do have proper professional training in form of a 3 years apprenticeship – which by the way is not the case in England or Sweden or other European countries.