Grim Boekhandel

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I've just been to town getting some presents in preparation for Father's Day and I took the opportunity to stop by a bookshop here in Hasselt I've been meaning to check up on.

I had only recently become aware of it after searching explicitly online for bookshops near me, because I had been feeling the loss of my long time favourite bookshop De Slegte, which closed its Hasselt branch some time ago, keenly.

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I had made a few unsuccesful and ill-prepared forrays into town to find it before but for some odd reason I had had no luck. Today, after having made sure where it was located, when already on its doorstep, I realised I must have cycled past it a few times without ever noticing it.

And though at first, after entering, I was ready to dismiss the shop as I couldn't immediately see any presence of english books, when I did finally spot the 2 whole shelves of English paperbacks and hardbacks my mouth dropped open. Now again, that might just be because I'm only used to the local Standaard Bookstore and I've been staring myself blind at the same shelves over and over.

A varied and original selection of the vintage red spined classics, a whole lot of the beautiful and seductive penguin clothbound classics that are many a booklover's edition of choice. Not alot of fantasy that I can specifically remember but I did see the garish eye-gougingly ugly spine for Joe Abercrombie's Half a King and a slew of Terry Pratchetts. I can't seem to immediately find a good picture of that spine which confirms my opinion of it must be shared by other people.

The choices of books seemed specific and oddly at the bottom shelf, I noticed a slight proclivity for horror.

Tell me; what small, independent book seller stocks up on Clive Barker these days? The Scarlet Gospels, Coldheart Canyon and Weaveworld. It's not much but their presence on the shelf was noteworthy nonetheless as apart from the Gospels those books aren't all that current. I saw some Stephen Kings, though odd is the bookshop that doesn't sell him so this isn't that remarkable.
I also saw the Exorcist but as I wanted to buy the hardcover I held off.

What I noticed most was how odd most of these choices of books were. I had also just been to the vey mainstream Standaard Boekhandel (and really, what's in a name?) and most of their books were very current, recent releases of popular books.
Here there were a bunch of books that you'd be hardpressed to find in other bookshops (I think); I can't remember much individual titles but I remember being quite pleased.
I've mentioned the Barker books, some older Terry pratchetts, The oddest one though was John Fowley's the Magus, and not in its new vintage jacket, no, in its Dell publishing edition. It's, though not exactly rare, odd to find one in a dutch-speaking bookshop. I had been holding off on getting the vintage edition of the Magus because, though their covers looked nice, I would've had to compulsively buy all of them at once to satisfy my collector's urge. I also saw one of those John Fowles Vintage books in the store and it reminded me that, indeed, the vintage spines are Hellisly garish looking. For example here's my vintage edition of Faulkner's As I lay Dying, bought for me by a friend who is quite obviously a sadist.

Pictures cannot give proper understanding of the mindwarping quality of the colours on that spine.
Good book though. Helped me understand how Stream of consciousness writing is supposed to be read.


In the end I walked away with Barker's Weaveworld, which might be the next read, John Fowley's the Magus and Stephen King's The Stand, which I all promptly picked up as soon as I saw them.
I doubted for a while on taking some other books as well but imported books aren't cheap, yow.

Reasons for picking them up?
The Magus, because of this Magus Blogpost on Loopingworld. And because I love postmodern meta fiction about and surrounding mythology. This, however IS the revised edition, so it isn't exactly what it could have been. Though because of the LP-post I'm already privy to some or most of the mystery at the heart of the novel so I don't really mind having things spelled out for me some more.

Weaveworld, because I had been thinking, after the Books of Blood and the Hellbound Heart, of reading some more Clive Barker. I love his writing style and his shocks hit me on a different level than most of the horror novels I've read. They feel more intimate and occasionally are very raw.
When I put it on the counter the sales-lady was very enthusiastic about it too. She recognized all three of the novels but she singled out Weaveworld as an absolutely lovely and favourite read. I'm assuming part sales tactic but there was also genuine love there. This might explain partially the oddity of why these books were in stock.

The guy on LoopingWorld is also reading it and I thought I might be able to get ahead of the review this time. He's been reading it a long time now, so following his reading patterns, it must be good.

Also, apparently an adaptation of Weaveworld for television is incoming. So yeah, a slight hipster-gene satisfaction there as well.

And Stephen King's The Stand, because it fits with the rest of the Stephen King Hodder paperbacks.

But mainly because it's the only significant novel outside of the main Dark tower series that is still connected to it, that I have not read. Apparently it's quite important for the character of Randall Flagg. I don't actually like reading King, as I find him quite an ordinary read but at the very least; it's a quick entertaining read (on a shallow level).

Uuuhm... did I say this was going to be a quick read?

EDIT: OOps! That's what you get for wanting to post something quickly. You end up missing something.

So, in summation; I had a very pleasant visit and a cool little book haul. I'm sure I'll return to Grim whenever I'm back in town.