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A Pilgrimage of Bookstores

Ailsa Piper July 27

This year, my first book was published. It’s about my 1300 kilometre walk across Spain carrying the sins of others, in the manner of medieval pilgrims.

Recently I made another journey—a pilgrimage of bookstores.

The sin-walk began in 2010 in Granada, in Spain’s south, a city where Moors and Christians wrote and re-wrote histories in bloody layers, and Boabdil breathed his famous last sigh.

My book odyssey began in Carlton, location of a personal trinity—Cinema Nova, Brunetti for a post-flick coffee, and Readings to browse their story-filled shelves.

I’d heard of Mark Rubbo, the Managing Director of Readings—of how he champions Australian writing, has created decades of conversation between readers and writers, and supports literacy through his Readings Foundation.

At the launch of my book in his Carlton store, Hannie Rayson spoke.

‘This is hallowed cultural turf, as significant to Melbourne as the MCG, the steps at Flinders Street and the floral clock,’ she said. ‘Ailsa is joining a grand Australian tradition in being the latest person to send her brave book out into the world from here, just as she did when she set out on her journey two years ago.’

Listening to her, I shivered, aware of those layers of history propelling my book on its way.

Back in 2010, I hiked north from Granada through Andalusia, where the black-eyed women of the pueblos confirmed their reputation as the most beautiful in Spain. I was making for the city of Córdoba, with a mosque-cathedral, the Mezquita, at the heart of its cobbled lanes.

My book’s pilgrimage led me to Aireys Inlet on the Southern Ocean. In the five years since she opened Great Escape Books, Nicole Maher has formed a passionate and devoted reading community there. Aireys is a one-pub pueblo at the foot of a lighthouse, with a population of only about a thousand, yet Great Escape thrives.

Sitting on the bookshop sofa sipping coffee, I heard Nicole and her staff greet customers by name, recommending titles for them as they walked in. They brought their kids, plopped beside me, and flipped through sample books. Like bars in Spanish pueblos, this bookstore is a substitute living room. My sessions at Nicole’s Lighthouse Literary Festival prompted gifts from her community—confessions about their personal stories and remembrances of Aireys—just as along Spanish roads, villagers had given me chorizo, cheeses and prayers for my safety.

In Córdoba, I could see myself inhabiting one of the flower-filled patios as I read the poems of Antonio Machado, while in Aireys I dreamed of salt-spray days and ink-dark nights in that book-centric pueblo.

The road north from Córdoba was muddy and strewn with rubbish, but the city of Merida welcomed me with pristine Roman ruins, and tenderness from a local named Ángel.

In Bookland, I travelled north to Collingwood, where Claire Woods hosted me at Travellers Bookstore. On an icy night, Claire poured wine and laid out a Spanish spread as she spoke about travel being more than planes and buses. For her it’s food and art, music and communion—journeys of the senses and mind, not just suitcases and adaptor cords.

Hauling my swag of sins through fields of Spanish wildflowers, I tramped across Extremadura, making for the university city of Salamanca.

My book’s tour led to bayside Elwood, where Clifford Posner’s Grumpy Swimmer gave refuge from winter winds. Clifford is a swimmer, but I saw no evidence of grumpiness.

He begins all his gatherings with a poem of his guest’s choosing, an instant ice-breaker, more illuminating than family history or CV. I chose the journey-poem that has inspired me since childhood—Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat.

Clifford’s focus is his ‘hood’. He hosts poetry nights, philosophy discussions and writing workshops, and his book-club has more than 100 members. Clifford says Grumpy is about participating, listening and showing care. ‘It’s all for the readers,’ he said, handing me Jonathon Raban’s Old Glory and assuring me I would love it. He was right. It’s an old favourite.

Galicia, known as the bathtub of Spain for its high rainfall, was the final leg of my 500-kilometre sin-laden walk. I climbed into mountains and mist, making for the grey-stone city of Ourense.

In Australia, book in hand and nerves in belly, I boarded a plane to Sydney, where torrential rains had fallen all week. Umbrella men wore the only smiles.

In my head, Sydney is a city of quips and bon-mots made by the outrageously glamorous, and I fretted that my pueblo­-scale story wouldn’t resonate.

At the Berkelouw bookstore in Leichhardt, I was led to an upstairs corner by bearded Geoff Kerrigan. Against a wall of second-hand books, a grey velvet chaise waited. I inhaled—yellowed pages, leather bindings, history and mystery—and relaxed. Downstairs was gloss, efficiency and newness, but up there among the pre-loved thousands, was safety. Writer Charlotte Wood sat beside me, her dark eyes welcoming all comers to talk sin, and that night, a bookshop in Sydney’s inner west became a cheery confessional.

Approaching Santiago de Compostela’s cathedral, sun blazed. A bell gonged as I toasted journey’s end with two walkers who’d taught me much.

I cried a little.

At Ariel Books in Paddington, Julia led me to a podium among children’s books. Ariel is bright and optimistic—not unlike Julia. Spanish Albarinjo stood in ice buckets. I’d last raised a glass of that wine in Santiago, and wanted to explain to Julia how sacred it was for me, but she was laying out olives and bread, and telling me her hopes for the evening. That it would be happy. That people would brave the cold. That it would give back to her customers and the author.

People did come. They sat in a circle on kiddie chairs. I saw faces I’d not seen for years, and greeted others who’d come only for the book. For a story.

I cried a little.

Julia pronounced it good.

After Santiago, I walked another hundred kilometres to Finisterre—land’s end—on the Atlantic coast, where I burned my list of sins as the sun set.

Back in Melbourne, my book led me to Avenue Bookstore, where they invite authors to ‘pop in and sign some copies.’ This is an act of faith—once signed, copies can’t be returned to the publisher. Among the books, I heard whispers about stories that had consoled, given laughter and opened doors. When the Avenue included my book in their Winter Reading Guide, I shivered, as I had back at Readings. I thought of all the books dispatched into the world before mine, and all those that would come after—just as, when the sun dropped into the sea at Finisterre, I’d imagined the millions of pilgrims who’d watched it before me, and the millions who would trek after me.

It’s freeing to feel our smallness.

It reminds us that what is big is story.

That is what is holy.

Stories compel us into the world—whether the story be a poem, as it often is for me; a sacred text from a prophet; a boy-wizard with a smart girl of mixed blood for company; a dark-night-big-city page-turner; or history and biography to show us the myriad ways. Stories mark our big occasions, and console us at times of loss. They’re borrowed, re-gifted and passed down. They’re markers of who we were and indicators of who we’ve become; of our quest for knowledge and insight.

The keepers of those stories, in their temples of the word, continue to build communities. They know story will survive, regardless of new delivery forms. They welcome us, these keepers.

They stretch us. They teach us. They restore us.

They do sacred work.

 

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