Kalahari Knews October2012

Garage to Garret

When we moved I said to our Landlord: “It will take a few months to settle in.” “It will take two years, Richard!” was his reply. Well, we moved in May 2011, and were “functional” in August of that year. Now it’s October 2012 and, indeed, it is a slow process.

The new premises at “The Garret” have meant that we’ve had much better access to our stock and we’ve sold interesting material that was idle, but which we’d felt we should keep. Some that we disposed of at the move, we now regret having lost! We’ve made our Rooftop Stall much more interesting as a result, with a bigger range and more stock and pushed up our turnover there some days up to three and a half times a “good day” formerly.

But Lebohang’s necessary decision to attend personally to his building enterprise in Qwa Qwa has meant that some of our plans for the Garret on Sunday’s have had to be shelved. So our New Face is a little slower at being put on.

Thank you to all our customer/friends who have found their way to The Garret over the past few months. It’s hard, in fast-paced, Johannesburg to lose our few habitual and stabilising haunts, which for many, the old Garage had become.

But, already, The Garret is taking on a familiar glow, as we change those things we can, and more importantly, accept those we cannot!

There’s lots more to happen at the Garret, and now that we have the flow of our older stock back – so much was boxed and felt inaccessible – we are able to process exciting and curious new material for you.

Please visit us (if you have not already) at:

Tuxedo Junction

2, Dunottar Street

Orange Grove

We are open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 9.30 to 16h30

Some Facts about Kalahari Books

Kalahari Books is more than 23 years old. My thespian son is almost 26 and he was an infant when I walked down to the Yeoville Flea Market one Saturday to try my hand at selling some donated books. The Name “Kalahari “ came to me in a dream – one of those cathartic dreams one has only a few times in one’s life.

It is my registered Trade Mark, though, interestingly I field several calls and e mails for Kalahari.com each day! We had this name long before that business but deal in "used, old and out-of-print" books,"popular titles of the past"

Kalahari Books has a reputation for being service oriented in a world where that style is scarce. We do try to respond. We know and value books.

We have an interesting and unusual warehouse which lends itself both to efficiency in service and old book-world charm.

We have a large stock of books not normally kept by a conventional bookshop.

For 18 years we have run a popular bookstall at the Rooftop in Rosebank on Sundays. It’s a bit like having a dinner party each week with a different menu, dishes all laid out in complimentary and contrasting tastes.

Setting up is stressful, winding (washing) up tiresome, but to see one’s guests so happy with what one has produced is pure delight.

Garret Gleanings

“As soon as the consuls had discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into the shade of private life, and enjoy, during the remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness” Gibbon: “Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire.”

“I remember summing up what I took to be our destiny, in a conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula. ’Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then, work, work, work, till we die’. C. S. Lewis:”Surprised by Joy”.

“Blood ties can mean trouble, chains and fatal obligation. The Tie of twins, inescapably strongest. My twin, my bond.” Dick Francis: “Break In”.

“’Even if you think such things, why do you say them?’ she scolded. ’I f you’d just think what you please but keep your mouth shut, everything would be so much nicer.’

‘That’s your system isn’t it my green-eyed hypocrite? Scarlett! Scarlett’‘” Margaret Mitchell: “Gone with the Wind.”

“Lane had shifted his attention from the frogs’ legs to the salad. ‘Any good?’ He said. ‘What’s it about?’

‘I don’t know. It’s peculiar. I mean it’s primarily a religious book. In a way, I suppose you could say it’s terribly fanatical, but in a way it isn’t.’” J. D. Salinger: “Franny and Zooey.”