Carsten Henn

Small-town German bookseller Carl Kollhoff delivers his books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world.

When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.

A Novel

The Door-To-Door Bookstore

Der Buchspazierer

Emma Hak-Kovacs

"I'm so glad there are books in the world," she said. "I hope that's one thing that never changes! So many things do, and it happens so fast. Everyone pays with plastic money now. People give me such odd looks whenever I count out the right change at the till!"

The master of the house would have loved to discuss books and authors in depth with Carl, whom he regarded as an educated, well-mannered man, and a kindred spirit. But with the passage of time, the words of invitation had escaped him. Perhaps he had lost them among the many rooms in his grand home.

Everywhere in the real world, Carl saw reflections of novels. To him, the city was populated with characters from books, even if those characters lived in quite different times, or far-off lands.

Carl sighed. "If you've been watching me for that long, you must know I always walk alone." “That's fine. You walk alone, and I'll walk alone beside you."

"Those books which lie closest to our hearts are precisely the books we should give away, so that they may bring others happiness."

Although he could barely hold the weight of a hardback book, he couldn't abide paperbacks. Only a hardcover felt protective enough for the valuable words inside, keeping them safe from harm. Now that he felt so unprotected himself, with Time and Death gnawing at his every extremity, he wanted security at least for the words that acted as his companions for this brief time.

"Reading a lot doesn't make you an intellectual, any more than eating a lot makes you a gourmet. I'm an ego-tist, reading purely for my own pleasure, out of love for good stories, not to learn something about the world." "There's no way to completely avoid learning. Something will lodge now and then, even in an old head like yours."

“…To my parents, there were no books for children or adults, just good or bad books, and they gave me the best, like others give diamond jewelry that you keep for a lifetime."

Julia Rutgers

She threw Carl a look, who threw it on Schascha, who threw it to the ground, where no one could see it.

Hadisa

Denn die Bücher brauchten jemanden, der ihr den richtigen Weg wies.

The Door-To-Door Bookstore quotes

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