Here I am

I started a blog today. Indeed, an  emphasized ‘I’, the first word to be read. It’s about me. That is, it’s about me and my shop, Antiquariaat Verzameld Werk. It’s about me being an antiquarian bookseller. My name is Berend Immink and I live in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

About twelve years ago I started the so-called Friday lists, small  catalogues, sent to my customers by e-mail every Friday. They replaced the catalogues we were famous for. Well, famous might be a bit overrated, but they had a certain name. Mainly because they were made by Martien Frijns, who now is a well known book designer, but in those days he was starting and trying almost everything, though he had a soft spot for big wooden letterfonts. 

I mentioned ‘we’. I started my business in 1985, with Han Rouwenhorst. We both studied literature in Nijmegen and were determined not to end up as teachers (like most students were supposed to). We were different, we were going to be antiquarian booksellers. And so we did. Han quit in 2006, but we’re still good friends. And I still own Verzameld Werk, but a lot has changed since the beginning.  

My shop is small and used to be big. My shop has no opening hours and is visitable only by appointment. I no longer issue paper catalogues, only digital ones. I’m not interested anymore in  ‘a stock as collection’ and I no longer want to be the one that is saving books ‘because they used to be important’. It’s just me who has to think they’re important.

Here's a link to my shop's website:

www.antiquariaatverzameldwerk.nl

On the other hand, some things didn’t change. We always had our personal way of describing the books in our catalogues. Some books became interesting because we had decided they were interesting. And most of our customers appreciated this. And that’s why I started this blog today: I want to make a personal statement. And write about my fresh, just bought books, about my customers (I will name them all by a random letter), about my shipping problems, book restoration, about my doubts, my failures and my successes.