The state of a society can be seen in its public bookcases. This means all the converted telephone booths and cobbled-together booths that are just as common in small towns as in Munich. The idea is this: books that you no longer need yourself are given to the general public for free instead of being sold on the Internet for 15 cents. After all, the value of language and stories is inestimably higher than anything that can be measured in terms of money.
But anyone who thinks now that the clever Munich resident will only dump his trash from the overcrowded old apartment in these cupboards, his penny novels and Schmonzetten, proseminar papers and telephone books, and swap for Nobel Prize winners, is wrong! Because even greater than the great good of language is obviously the desire to make other people happy.
There is no other way of explaining what is on the Munich bookshelves. In short: the really great literature. “The Medicus” is actually always there, that story that has been sold a million times about a traveling doctor in the Middle Ages and his erotic experiences in the Orient. Or philosophical things from Rosamunde Pilcher. Then you will always find a selection of really smart cookbooks from the eighties, such as “The best party recipes”, compiled by Dr. Oetker (special tip: pineapple smoked pork in sourdough) or, as recently at the bookcase in the Au: “Rustic – dishes from the far north”, bought for 2 Mark 50 from Karstadt, so almost a work of antiquarian value.
If you are really lucky, you will catch a book by Johannes Mario Simmel (“It doesn’t always have to be caviar” from 1960), or something with “Men” and “Dessert” in the title, on the cover there are laughing women with champagne glasses. Most of the time, the treasures are really only for a short time, you need good timing to get a copy of “Programming for Dummies” or even the bestseller “Windows ’95 Made Easy”.
Sample at the bookcase in Schwabing. Here too: the highest quality. A guide promises “The right horse for you”, next to it is “Instant Boyfriend”, the literary debut of Hollywood twins Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen. Just as you are about to load the treasure, a guy stalks up and reaches in the middle of the shelf. Panic. What did he get hold of? “Pünktchen und Anton” by Erich Kästner, an illustrated edition, he proudly shows it. Well, if he means absolutely.