AndrewJamison

Back in the winter of 2015 I walked into what was then Gregers Antikvariat and had what might well be called a moment of truth. At the time, second hand bookstores seemed to be vestiges of the past, doomed to oblivion in the brave new world of Amazon and ebooks. When I asked Greger Antoft about the possibility of taking over his store, which he had decided to vacate after many years of operation, he told me that he now did most of his book-selling on the internet, and could just as well move exclusively into ecommerce.

As a lifelong lover of books and used bookstores, who had recently moved to Malmö, I took his words as something of a challenge and soon decided to make a go of it. Running a second-hand bookstore and, in the process, giving it a more international flavor to serve Malmö’s increasingly multicultural population, seemed to be well worth doing, especially for a newly retired professor with time on his hands.

And now, ten years later Andy’s Corner is one of four second-hand bookstores on Helmfeltsgatan, as we welcome our new neighbor, Antikvariat Artes to Malmö’s own book street, along with Bokfinken and Atlantis. So come by and browse to your heart’s content. If one of us doesn’t have the book you wanted maybe we have something even better, the book you didn’t know you needed.

One of the few remaining pleasures of American culture is the weekly magazine The New Yorker, which this year is celebrating its 100th anniversary. When I was growing up, it was always fun when a new issue came in the mail – I mostly enjoyed the wonderful cartoons – and through the years it has continued to publish fine reporting, reviews, poems and short stories, as well as the inimitable cartoons, as many, if not most of its contemporaries, have disappeared from the proverbial marketplace of ideas. Anyway, as a subscriber for many years, the magazines have accumulated and so, as a small token of my appreciation, and a way to keep them from gathering dust and in circulation, I will be giving away a free issue to all customers at Andy’s Corner if and when they make a purchase. So come and peruse the piles on the table in the front room next time you visit us.

Yes, indeed. We are back from a memorable week in Barcelona, where we heard Grigory Sokolov at the Palau de Musica – quite an experience! – and discovered a lovely museum displaying the works of Josep Subarichs, best known for his sculptures at the Passion Facade at Sagrada Familia. Here’s a small sample and a clip of Sokolov playing Brahms, as he did last week in Barcelona. We usually play his recording of Bach’s Art of the Fugue on Thursdays at Andy’s Corner, and this week we’ll also be playing a new Sokolov cd that I got in Barcelona. So that gives you one more reason to come by the shop.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D7p9MFWmF8jg&ved=2ahUKEwisypnrsN-LAxXRKBAIHeoxFnoQz40FegQIBBAI&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw13xQI_IHCvvpYhLfmXunZr

We’re off for a family visit to Barcelona on Monday and so the store will be closed next week. Do come by today if you are in the neighborhood. We have lots of new posters, including this one, which seems quite relevant in these trying times.

We’ll be open again on February 27.

I started using Facebook when I opened the shop in 2015, primarily as a way to tell people about our events and, on my personal page, to play with new ways of expressing myself by sharing pictures and stories and songs and poems and the occasional article that I found on the internet. I knew – we all knew – that Facebook, like all the other so-called social media, as well as the countless other apps that were increasingly taking over the internet, was in it for the money and that its owners were extremely unpleasant and greedy people. But, let’s face it, it was fun to be able to use it and so I kept telling myself that I wasn’t the problem, the problem was all those other people who misused it by telling lies and fostering hatred and, in the process, bringing the world to the sorry state in which it now finds itself.

Anyway, I can no longer see the positive value of social media in any way, shape or form. And so I will stop posting on Facebook. Please comment on this blog or send me an email, or even better, come by the shop if you wish to communicate with me in the future and/or create an event or activity at Andy’s Corner. As Bob Dylan once put it, “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.”

On January 26, the Bellevue String Quartet will be returning to Andy’s Corner with a concert starting at 3 p.m. To get you in the mood, here is a concert they gave in the fall at a festival in Austria.

In June our friend Katlijn Sergeant, who plays in the Malmö Symphony Orchestra, asked if she could have a film made in the shop with her and Patrick Raab playing a new piece that Anders Koppel had written. And here it is. Enjoy!

The summer sale continues until the summer ends, which is next week, so do come by this week and load up on cds, lps, dvds, 45s, 78s, and pocket books at the unbelievably low price of 25 kronor. And, just to clarify, the fiction that is on sale for 50 kronor includes hardbound and large(r) softbound books, that is, all that aren’t able to fit into your pocket and are thus not bona fide pocket books.

We will be closed next week, Sept 26-28, while I am away visiting friends and family in the US, but whoever reads this is most welcome to stop by this week during the final countdown!

With so many generous people giving us stuff all the time and our storage rooms filled to capacity, I thought I could be generous myself and launch a summer sale.

Starting Thursday, June 27, all cds, dvds, lps, 78s, and pocket books will be on sale for 25 crowns and hardback fiction will cost 50.

Call it a dream come true and come by and load up!