According to the Barnes&Noble website, there are three reasons why readers love the smell of books … but if it were up to us, we could give you thousands.
So, this September, when our journalist and vlogger (video blogger), Shayne Robinson found himself in, what must certainly be, Joburg’s biggest bookshop, Collectors Treasury, well, we just knew he had found our literary heaven.
Imagine a store with about two million books, including other paper items and vinyl records piled not only on the shelves but also along the passages and staircases of five storeys. Well, you don’t need to use your imagination – this store exists in the Johannesburg CBD and has been running for 43 years.
In his video titled, Johannesburg’s BIGGEST bookshop – which you can find on the Caxton Greater Joburg YouTube channel or on the City Buzz website, Shayne walks us through the store – and we bet our bottom dollar book lovers will fall in love with the smell of books all over again.
In an interview with one of the store’s owners, Geoff Klass, we begin to realise that it is not only the vast collection of books that makes this store stand out, it is also the personal contact that customers receive. You see, this store offers a particularly unique experience in the digital age, where many of us are purchasing our books online or visiting bookstores where the barcodes are loaded onto an electronic system. In this store, Klass joked, “We just whistle and the books come running.”
It was good timing for Shayne to find the store too, as September marked National Literacy Month, and, as READ Educational Trust, a non-governmental organisation that has promoted literacy in the country for nearly four decades, described in a statement, the month ‘serves to draw attention to the salience of literacy in a knowledge-hungry world’.
We hope that Shayne’s find inspires you to feed your hunger for knowledge and find a book to educate and entertain you. After all, reading should be an exercise we indulge in every day.
And speaking of daily routines, we hope you will consider taking a few minutes to watch Shayne’s daily videos of the hidden, and not so hidden, gems of the Joburg CBD.
In September, along with finding this bookstore, Shaye discovered some trendy spots to grab a cup of Jo (another of our daily necessities), some of the best street performances in town, and what one can buy on Joburg’s streets.
We’ve captured the content of a few of these videos in this edition, but you really need to log onto our website, www.citybuzz.co.za, to watch them for yourself. And if you have come across noteworthy finds in the CBD, I’d love to hear about them. Drop an email to daniellap@caxton.co.za and we may just check it out for ourselves.
Happy reading!
