When the teenage uncle Nicolas, almost 90 years, started buying used books by Tepito, one of the most marginal neighborhoods in Mexico City, and his mother asked him one morning what he planned to do with so much paper accumulated between the narrow walls of his house, did not imagine that almost 100 Years later his family would accumulate millions of second -hand works in living "cemeteries" where manuscripts wait for decades, spilled on the floor or accumulated on huge shelves, someone give them life. Donceles street, In the middle of the historic center, It smells like dust and paper. At the end and beginning. To miracle of ink where to find books scribbled by García Márquez or Chronicles of the 16th century.
López Casillas are a lineage (A real novel and to write enclosed among its millions of books for sale), Essential part of that Mexican wonder baptized with a bite of literature: "Libraries of the old". There are in the capital, Guadalajara and Aguascalientes. Immense stores, Dirridge or oblivion funds where the world is made letter in its maximum extension. Nothing that is or has been not may be in this treated wooden universe. There are such large and full book shelves that it seems that there would be no room for more words in the world. Yours, as Juan baptized, One of the eleven Libreros de los López Casillas, It begins to be the narration of an end: «The last and we leave, The death of books », It is called its fifth and last bookstore open a few years ago. Other of its protagonists are more optimistic.
When does a book die? «When it is on a shelf and nobody consults them. Also passes with private bookstores used for decoration. They are not dead books here, They are books waiting to be reread. Every time a book is read again, he recovers his life and not only that, but a coffee stain, A note or a photograph inside invite a reflection on the previous owner », Francisco López Casillas explains, Another of the Libreros brothers. Before, Sitting with a chair among the shelves of one of its "stores" explains how everything began, Because like every good story, The old libraries have their beginning, middle and end:
When does a book die? «When it is on a shelf
«After starting selling in markets, Uncle Nicolás opened two bookstores, The star and the hotel, On Miguel Hidalgo Street. One attended her single sister Berta and her mother (My mother and grandmother). My mother is interfering but married and as a woman of her time it was not allowable to work in a store without taking care of her home. For fortuitous things, My uncle Nicolás must leave DF and my uncle Miguel takes over his bookstores and invites my dad, 1947, that I worked with him in the bookstores of Uncle Nicolás », Francisco explains.
Some problems make their father stop working with his political family and mount their own businesses. Little by little he learns from this universe of old paper and while his wife stays at home with his children, What is the love for the books of the family comes from, He becomes an expert buyer and book seller. «My father took us every Sunday to all the male brothers (They are eleven in total counting girls and boys) To set up the sale of the Lagunilla market. There we learned this trade »
Then, Family, already turned into a long lineage divided into communicating trunks, Lands on Donceles Street, In the historic center of the Mexican capital. «In the year 68 My uncle Miguel, I took care of my uncle Nicolás's bookstores, He tells my mother that she wants to put a bookstore in maiden. They join another brother and put one of the first bookstores. Curiously, My uncle Nicolás tells his brother to give him the money to put the place but asks him to give Berta, My mother, Half of the money to set up your own bookstore too. Then, a week to take charge, My dad takes my mother out of the business and tells her that she must be attending her children. My mom spent my life wanting to be a bookcase, It was a fervent reader. When my dad put his first bookstore, He had to go to see clients and the bookstore was attended by his mother (My grandmother). So when my paternal grandmother needed something, six streets were running to ask my mom «hey berta, What do we do with this sale?»And then my mother told him, Josefina Duña, Do not leave the client waiting, If the client tells you to offer. My mother gave my grandmother many tips so that the bookstore could work ».
A merchant, Unlike a book seller, knows what sells
The eleven children (two have already died), that as the patriarch said, "None wanted to be a bookseller" and to which his mother struggled "to study and not be", They end up in the used book business. Libraries begin to open, In some cases, associating between them in various neighborhoods and are approaching their goal: Donceles street. The devastating earthquake of the year 85 Take down a father's warehouse, Ubaldo, And he decides to give the immense collection saved to his children to mount their businesses. «Then we bought everything and we no longer had space to keep the specimens. When we finally rent in maidens we decided to baptize the first business in honor of my dad as «Ubaldo López and children: Book merchant ». My father said that a merchant, Unlike a book seller, He knows what he sells and knows the books he has at his disposal. He did not need to get a book out of the shelf to know the author or edition of a copy, I had a prodigious memory ».
In the following years the López Casillas open eight businesses for the sale of used books in maiden. «We had a competition with photography houses on the street. We fought for the premises. That caused the income to upload. The properties knew in advance that the López Casillas or the photographic houses went for them ».
Time, however, He was demolishing some family alliances and eliminating the partners and leaving only the brothers as it happens today. «The priority is the love for the printed book. We are brothers, We love each other a lot, But we are very respectful of our businesses. We are independent. We have an implicit competition, not explicit », Francisco explains. "We do not compete because there are no clients or to compete", He says his brother Juan later asked with a smile.
The family, that has moved an incalculable amount of several million books for their almost one hundred years of love to the used book, was diversifying the business: «My dad said that good books was of law and history of Mexico. My brother Ubaldo (the largest) He began looking for other types of books and my brother Juan implemented the detail that we should learn from all kinds of books », Francisco recalls.
The royal bookstore, In maidens, which is announced as the largest in Mexico is owned by a Juan who calculates his library for sale in «more than 1.000.000 of copies ». Francisco says that once an employee of his wanted to calculate more or less the books of one of his maiden libraries and «we calculate 450.000 on display and more than 1800 Boxes full of books that I have in a house in the Colonia del Valle ».
Calculate your library for sale in «more than 1.000.000 of copies »
Among them there are anecdotes such as a series of books that Francisco bought with the initials GGM and that in the absence of some inquiries it seems that they correspond to the private library of García Márquez Márquez. «I found a lot of used books, very underlined and marked with the acronym GGM and a date. Then I began to investigate and decided to buy the set of 80 the 90 books. After several years, Before García Márquez died, I started reviewing his spelling. Interestingly, a few months ago I found someone who knew García Márquez's personal library who, when he reviewed them, told me that it was his library. In one he criticizes the work of Octavio Paz ».
What does it cost now if your signature is? «I keep investigating after 10 years. This person told me that he will get an appointment with Álvaro Mutis and be able to review the library he stayed by García Márquez. A first edition of one hundred years of solitude can be in 30.000 weights (1600 EUR) , Dedicated can be worth 70.000 and 80.000 weights (3500 the 4000 EUR).
Finding those jewels is part of the business. «My dad bought great works and sold them the next day. I have some there they already have 20 years on the shelf », Juan says that he teaches us forgotten works in his 16th and seventeenth library. «The most expensive book I sold in my life -the conquest of the province of Itzae- the 1705, They stole it from me. For a confusion of a seller of mine a client took it as a double volume. I managed to locate him for the bank and although I asked him to restore him, He told me that he had given it to his father and could no longer return it to me. I was surrounded by four lawyers and in the end he agreed to pay me the real price that I had not to say how much it was but after years of investigating his value he was multiplied by 100 The initial value we put. I am very sorry, The great pride of a bookseller is knowing how to sell a book », Francisco recalls.
The great pride of a bookseller is knowing how to sell a book
The price of a book, Know how to put it, It is one of the qualities that a bookseller must have, Book merchant for Patriarch Ubaldo: "It is investigated with catalogs and the work is studied", Juan points out. «It requires a lot of work, much knowledge. If we have the López Casillas, we are very working », Francisco points out.
The sample is in that beautiful trace of maiden. There are the old book stores threatened with neglect. In 30 years there will be the libraries of the old? I bet that yes. My brother Mercury advocates 10 there will be no bookstores and in 15 years will not print books. Sale levels are lowering a lot. Of last year we have lowered a 30 o 40%», Francisco responds. «The damage is being made to us our giant neighbor, U.S., and the arrival of the ebooks and the marketing only of the profitable », Focus.
«Now you have to lower the price to sell. Before libraries came intellectuals and people with money. I am going to close one of my bookstores in a year and in five I plan to stay alone with one », Juan says that on the second floor of his Regia bookstore he points out a mountain of books that will go to the trash: "I get more expensive to take them to sell them as paper than to throw them away", said. A decision that does not prevent «every month I buy between 5000 and 10.000 books". His brother Francisco also confirms that buying fever: «López Casillas do not stop buying books despite having many in winery, Many employees and pay a lot for rent of the premises. We continue to bet on the book used printed ».
«The used book business will not die, just change its form. On the contrary, it will be greater because the lack of printed books will make it the object of worship. We will see it in the coming years », It also tells El Mundo César Diz, owner of an old library in Aguascalientes. «The greatest enemy of books is the lack of scientific education, Critical and Methodological ». concludes.
The afternoon falls into maidens and the doors of many of those immense libraries close. From outside, From the street, It seems impossible to imagine where that idea of ??uncle Nicolás came to buy books and resell them in the streets. Juan's message, At the beginning of the street, It is clear: «The last and we leave. The death of books ».
