‘Customers increasingly see booksellers as advisors’: what is flying over the counter at Paard van Troje?

Which books do well with Paard van Troje?

“Jenny Erpenbecks Kairos, a story about love and idealism in a tired GDR, and about its betrayal, as a result of which the cruelty of power can no longer be hidden. The English version already did remarkably well and the Dutch translation even surpasses it.

“What we notice is that many people are looking for an explanation about the war in Gaza. They really come asking for books that place today’s violence in a historical context. To Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War against Palestine for example, there is a lot of demand. It is not immediately clear whether interest is greater now than after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, but what is striking is that the European war immediately sparked a whole stream of new publications, while there is no publication about Gaza. Putin’s biographies have been out of date, while Netanyahu’s first has yet to be published.”

Do you see trends in sales?

“That customers increasingly see booksellers as advisors. They ask, listen and trust the tips we give. For example, we are quite fond of the queer, speculative and experimentally written short stories of Jonas Eika, collected in After the sun. Such a book is not immediately obvious, but because we recommend it, it sells quickly. And afterwards we receive positive feedback about it.

“The same applies to Chantal Akermans My mother laughs. There is a large pile of these not only at the entrance, but also in the non-fiction department, and the customers follow suit.”

Which book did you expect more from?

“By Disturbed, by Rainald Goetz, about a punk psychiatrist who questions the usual methods of the clinic where he works and thereby provokes a crisis. We fully supported it, the German original and the English translation did well internationally, but it did not get off the ground here. Until now, because we will not be discouraged and will always keep a pile of this recommendation.”

Which book are you looking forward to?

Sarah de Koning: “To Parade, the new Rachel Cusk. I think she is a superior stylist who seems to continue in the same spirit in this new book as in her previous one, about pushing the boundaries of the classic novel, art, femininity and sexuality.”

Arno Van Vlierberghe: “War Trilogy by Agustín Fernández Mallo. His previous one, the Nocilla trilogye, I thought it was great, so I want to start working on this immediately after it appears.”