Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia WassefMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"In an effort to suppress dissent, each political regime had taken control of cultural output... Starting a bookstore at this moment of cultural atrophy seemed impossible - and utterly necessary... Diwan was conceived as a reaction to a world that had stopped caring about the written word... She has nobler ideas than her surroundings permit... She brings people and ideas together."
Thus began the true story of a woman and her two female friends, and how they put up an ideal bookstore in a male-dominated Cairo. It is about to turn 20 years old in a few months, and can be found online here: https://diwanegypt.com/
Enjoyed this book (an early Christmas gift from Le Twinnie) so much! The four-star rating is because I think this has a target audience: a female book lover who holds administrative duties professionally. Am unsure if men would appreciate the writer's voice: colorfully cursing in every other page, declaring her opinions so decidedly while mercilessly painting an unflattering picture of a few vile people she encountered. Who knew that a bookstore could be so exciting?!
Part of what made this book so enjoyable was the author's sense of time and place. I streamed Umm Kulthum on Spotify because Wassef said she alternated her music with George Gershwin's in her bookstore.
It was inevitable, I suppose, for a bookseller to recommend her favorite reads, and thus I emerge at the end of the book having added more than a dozen "must-save-up-for" titles in my ever growing Wish list. It's good to have book dreams. Haha.
I could relate to so much in the book: a very frank description of the divide between the two Egypts (separated by educational background and socioeconomic class) seemed almost the same as the situation in Manila, as well as the unique approach to combat inefficient government bureaucracy (appreciation boxes of candy, anyone?).
It's the story of idealists living in a non-ideal environment, and I suppose every reader can relate to this. Readers know that the status quo shouldn't be this way, that there were better times, that we can forge better days ahead. That we are capable of much more than the mediocrity that surrounds us.
I read this book at a time when book selections in Philippine libraries are under siege, and freedom of thought is threatened. I take comfort in the fact that for as long as there are readers in any society, this attack on Civilization will not succeed.
"Mediocrity is our enemy... We wanted to remodel our country... we kept the faith, despite the odds. We refused to be bitter. Reading itself is an expression of faith."
It's a must-read for any book lover! And it made me miss physical bookstores so much, huhu.
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