Imagine having an indie bookstore all to yourself for an entire night. Join me in this episode as I chat with fellow book lover and Bookstagrammer, Dr. Stefanie Caeners, a Literary Studies lecturer who had just that experience. We talk about indie bookshops, books we love, Edinburgh, and reading.
Stefanie's journey is a fascinating one. From discovering her love for Southern California at the tender age of 16, choosing an office job over college, to her apprenticeship in the media business, and finally, her transition into studying literature, it's a story worth hearing.
Stefanie's passion for British literature will captivate you, as will her insights on the topic of her PhD thesis and the freedom she found in studying something she adored.
Dr. Sefanie Caeners
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style, Paul Rudnick
The Displacements, Bruce Holsinger
The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa
James Fahy The Bookshop Podcast
Paul Rudnick the Bookshop Podcast
Imagine having an indie bookstore all to yourself for an entire night. Join me in this episode as I chat with fellow book lover and Bookstagrammer, Dr. Stefanie Caeners, a Literary Studies lecturer who had just that experience. We talk about indie bookshops, books we love, Edinburgh, and reading.
Stefanie's journey is a fascinating one. From discovering her love for Southern California at the tender age of 16, choosing an office job over college, to her apprenticeship in the media business, and finally, her transition into studying literature, it's a story worth hearing.
Stefanie's passion for British literature will captivate you, as will her insights on the topic of her PhD thesis and the freedom she found in studying something she adored.
Dr. Sefanie Caeners
Farrell Covington and the Limits of Style, Paul Rudnick
The Displacements, Bruce Holsinger
The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa
James Fahy The Bookshop Podcast
Paul Rudnick the Bookshop Podcast
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly and I'm a Bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with independent bookshop owners from around the globe, authors and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the environment and social justice. To help the show reach more people, please share it with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 225.
Speaker 1:After finishing an apprenticeship, living in Southern California for some time and working in the media business for several years, stephanie Canes studied English and German literature at the University of Duisburg-Essen. During her studies, she worked as a journalist and also as both a student assistant and a tutor in the English department. In March 2007, she finished her degree with an MA thesis on literary theory in David Lodger's campus novels. In October 2010, she completed her PhD with a thesis entitled Verbal Visuality the Visual Arts in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction. She's been working as a lecturer for the Literary Studies section since 2007. Hi, stephanie, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to see you again. Hi, mandy, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. In my introduction, I spoke about how you'd lived in Southern California and the different courses. You'd studied your PhD and your work as a literary professor. So can you expand on this a little bit and tell us what led you through this journey?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow where to start. My CV is a little bit complicated, maybe a little more complicated than the CV of most people.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know about complicated, but it's definitely interesting Good point.
Speaker 2:Well, the first time I went to Southern California was in the early 90s, so when I took part in it was like a four week long home state program where we had English classes, we learned all about US culture, went on field trips and all of these things. So my love for Southern California kind of started when I was 16, roughly. So after I finished school I did something that's actually quite typical for Germany. So instead of going to college, I started vocational training in an office. This was mostly something that my parents kind of talked me into, I must say, because they were saying, well, an office job gives you security and I would already earn some money and I'd always have something decent to fall back on. So, yeah, I believed them and I did that and ended up hating every single second of it. I had actually wanted to do, or rather wanted to do, something with books, yeah. But people were always saying, well, you can't make any money from reading and book selling is an underpaid profession and all of these things.
Speaker 2:So well, I was young and gullible, so I abandoned those dreams, but even though I did pull through with the apprenticeship, so I did finish it and all of that. But I always told myself, even while working, or maybe especially while I was working that I'd be out of there the minute my training ended. Yeah, I basically started saving just the meager salary I was making as an apprentice and then made that dream come true and went to San Diego for about well half a year, I think, where I took language classes and, just yeah, had a blast in a way.
Speaker 1:Well, san Diego is a beautiful place. Yeah, it's lovely. So, from San Diego, what prompted you to move back to Germany and study literature?
Speaker 2:It was a step in between. I mean, I did go back to Germany because obviously my student visa didn't last forever. So I returned to Germany and because I was still kind of like buying into this idea of having to do something substantial and that's not a why that wasn't a wise choice went to work in an office again for a few years and it was in fact a much better job than the one I had before doing the apprenticeship, because it was in media, in media business, and it was in flight entertainment agency, so I was talking to US film studios on a daily basis. So that was really interesting. But just deep down I knew that this just wasn't it. Then I quit after a few years and went to university at the tender age of 27.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great age to go to university. You've sown some oats by then right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So I studied German and English literature, so a double major. Yeah, frankly, I've never regretted it because I absolutely loved it. It was sort of like the best thing that ever happened to me, and I enjoyed English more than German. But just in general, I think I valued this experience much more highly than a lot of the younger students, because I'd seen the real world, if you know what I mean. So I think I was enjoying being a student much more and savoring sort of like the freedom to finally be doing something that I'd always wanted to do, and from there you went on to get your masters, followed by your PhD.
Speaker 2:I did. Yeah, I was quite lucky. I mean, I had like a handful of jobs during my studies to keep afloat, like all students probably, and one of them was as a freelance journalist at the local newspaper. I was quite lucky to get a position like a student assistant position in the English department. So I basically already had my foot in the door when it came up to finishing my masters and applying for a PhD.
Speaker 1:And what was your thesis topic for your PhD?
Speaker 2:For the PhD, it was on the visual arts in contemporary literature. They're basically novels that deal with visual art. It could just be descriptions of paintings or could be a story about a painter and the sort of like artistic viewpoint and those types of things.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you currently teach British literature at the British and Anglophone Literature and Culture Department at the University of Duisburg-Essen. What drew you to British literature?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. As I said before, English was my second major and I liked it a lot better than German literature. But I don't know, I'm kind of like a weak spot for the English language and for English literature and I like how different it is throughout the various epochs of history and maybe or probably it all started when I first read like a battered library copy of Jane Eyre when I was 14.
Speaker 1:That creates a great image. I can see you sitting in a library with that book. Not that Now for our listeners. You and I met through Instagram and were lucky to meet in person when you traveled to California earlier this year and visited Bart's books in my hometown of Ohai. Now, like me, you adore independent bookshops and have seen many across the globe. Is there a country, city or town you feel has an innately stronger presence of reading and indie bookshops?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a tough one. As for certain countries, the city is, I don't know. I think I haven't really traveled widely enough yet to sort of like presume I know what that special place would be, but what I can say is that I think that everywhere the appreciation for smaller and independent bookshops is kind of on the rise. At least that's my impression, because, as we all know, that was this time where the smaller shops went out of business because of the chain bookstores, which then in turn had a difficult time because of readers ordering their books online, and I mean, even though people myself included, obviously will continue to buy things on the Internet. I feel like more and more indie bookshops are being opened again, because customers crave that sense of community that had been lost. At least that's my impression.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree with you there. One of the things that I noticed in your Instagram post is that you travel to Scotland quite regularly. Speaking of literary towns, Is it easy access to get there from Germany?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not too far. I mean, if you take the plane it's about one and a half hours from here to Edinburgh. But we usually take the overnight ferry, so we have the car with us. It's much more convenient, so you can drive around.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you can pack books in your car. That as well yes. I've not been to Edinburgh but it's on my wish list. But I imagine it to be a little like Ireland, where their local writers, past and present, are cherished. I guess that's one of the reasons Edinburgh was named the first city of literature by UNESCO. For this show, I've interviewed booksellers from Golden Hair Lighthouse Bookshop and the Edinburgh Bookshop, but I'm interested in which bookshops you've visited while you've been in the city.
Speaker 2:You actually. I mean, Edinburgh is essentially any book lover's paradise, I would say right, it's not just a stunningly beautiful city, but it has some of the most amazing bookshops around, and well, I've been to Topping Company, that's definitely a favorite. They have other branches, one of them in St Andrews and then another one in Bath and some other place I can't remember right now. They have these sort of like honey-coloured bookshelves and rolling letters. It's amazing and they also have complimentary tea and coffee, so that's a nice plus. Also really like lighthouse books. I think you interviewed them. The Golden Hair, that was another one. Yeah, maybe, if you like secondhand books, armchair books would be a nice place to go, because that's like a rabbit hole that you can fall into and you might just find one or the other little treasure.
Speaker 1:It sounds a bit like Bart's books. Stephanie, how do you feel social media has enhanced reading?
Speaker 2:It's a good addition to just reading by yourself at home, etc. But I think it gives you something that also, like local bookshops, do this the sense of community in a way. I think, especially during the last years, with the pandemic and everything that's been going on, and places like Instagram ignoring all the drama that can obviously happen there as well those places are kind of lovely because people can easily sort of like find their own niche you know what I mean. So cat lovers will find other cat lovers and knitters will find other knitters and book lovers will find other readers, and it's a global thing. That's the lovely thing about it, I think. So to get to talk to people from all over the world who share your interests, and that's amazing and obviously it wouldn't have been possible 20 or 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:And I also like how the hashtags have managed to break down the writing genres. For example, hashtag reading romance, hashtag romance, hashtag crime thrillers, hashtag nonfiction. And, as you said, there is a group for everyone. It wasn't that long ago where there were fan clubs for authors, so you would write a physical letter, send it through the mail and hope the author got back to you, and now it's almost instantaneous. You can tag an author in a post, drop them a message, comment on one of their posts. I think that connection is wonderful for readers and also for authors, and it's a fantastic way for publishing companies or the PR reps in publishing companies to reach out to readers. It's become a phenomenal marketing tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. It's kind of like also a modern way of advertising and recommending books right, and can be very bad for your bank account yes, tell me about it, because you find so many new titles that you may never have heard of before without social media. But it's great fun and I also like how it kind of like promotes reading and the passion for the written word in general, especially in times where, like overly critical people are always advertising the death of the book. I believe that places like Bookstagram and Booktalk and BookTube when you name it are evidence that literature is still running strong right.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. You spoke earlier about the drama of social media. That's something I keep away from. If there's a book that I've read and I don't like it, or I decide not to read it because it just didn't capture me quick enough, I don't talk about it. I'd much rather focus on the positive of books that I find thrilling to read, and for someone who is wanting to share a negative review, then my goodness, you better back that up.
Speaker 1:For example, just writing I didn't like this book. I was bored. It doesn't really help another reader. Think about what it is that bored you with this book, and my guess is that if it didn't grab you within that first sentence, first paragraph, first page, then perhaps the reason you didn't like that book is because you like to be grabbed from that first sentence. So maybe you could give an example of why the first sentence was boring, and I think this is actually good for the author and good for the reader. Let's face it, reading is subjective, like everything else on the planet. Some people are going to like what you like and others aren't, and that's the joy of the arts, exactly, yeah? Okay, now let's talk about something fun, because you've recently had an overnight stay in a bookshop. Can you share that little adventure with us?
Speaker 2:I did. Yeah, that was amazing. That was a wonderful experience and obviously something I'd been wanting to do forever and ever and ever, like any other bookworm. So how did it happen?
Speaker 2:Well, I recently found out that a relatively new indie bookshop just five kilometers down the road from our house was offering overnight stays. Yeah, so they have a beautiful shop downstairs and upstairs, kind of like an open landing, where they have a fold out couch that you can sleep on when you get tired. So you basically show up shortly before closing time, which is when they show you everything that you need to know, like where the light switches, where's the coffee machine, and then you're left in the shop by yourself till the next morning and you can browse and read, and it was actually quite nice and lovely to just browse the shelves without interruption and to read through half the night. I fell asleep like sometime after midnight, but then got up early the next morning, make myself a cuppa and continued browsing till the booksellers came in to open the shop at around nine I think it was and then I went and had a lovely breakfast, which was also included in the overnight fee.
Speaker 1:It was quite something. It sounds like the perfect gift to give a book lover. Let's talk books, our favorite topic. Do you read mostly fiction or nonfiction, and is there a genre of fiction that is your preferred genre to read?
Speaker 2:Well, I've always had a soft spot for gothic fiction, horror fiction, but I'm very much a mood reader actually, so I read almost any kind of genre, depending on what I feel like really, which is why my piles of books are growing, yeah, so it really depends on my mood what I want to read. But yeah, I have kind of like this weak spot for the gory and the creepy, and that's a great segue into my next question.
Speaker 1:What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2:The book I'm currently reading is Stephen King's latest novel, holly. I know I've been enjoying that a lot. It's about people going missing and a very questionable couple of academics who are to blame and that's not a spoiler, because it's on the back blurb. I really like King because he's an author I've been following ever since I picked up a copy of Pet Sematary when I was 14. And I was way too young to read something that scary, and that book scared me good. I was equally traumatized and fascinated at the same time. So I kind of stuck with his literature, all his books, his novels.
Speaker 2:As for recommendations, that's a tough one. Well, this last year it was quite a bit of a stressful time because we had a few family issues with my mom was ill and stuff like that. So I was kind of drawn to sort of what you would probably call comfort books, comfort reads A few that really stuck out for me. So my first recommendation would probably be A Quiet Life by Ethan Joella, which is kind of like a powerful but also tender novel about three people grappling with different kinds of loss. But be warned, it will rip out your heart. That then it will stitch back together. So you should be fine.
Speaker 1:I think your last sentence would make an author feel proud.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I really enjoyed that one. And another one I read quite recently was the Wishing Game by Meg Schaeffer. Even though you can guess quite early on how it will end, it's slightly predictable. It ticked all my boxes. Yeah, it's an enchanting Willy Wonka kind of story, with a mystical island, a reclusive bestselling author and lots of riddles, and I mean, what's not to love about that, right? Yes, absolutely. So these are sort of like the two I read quite recently and that I would recommend.
Speaker 1:Did you read Yellow Face by Rebecca F Hwang?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. I did read that while we were in Scotland this summer. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I loved it. My daughter-in-law gave me this book and I really want to read it, so it's on my list. A book I'm going to recommend is by Paul Rudnick, and it's called Errol Covington and the Limits of Style. It's hysterical, it's moving, it goes through kind of a timeline which reflects a little bit about Paul's life. It's definitely one of my favourite books of 2023 and I'll make sure to put a link in the show notes to my interview with Paul Rudnick. Another book I'm going to give a shout out to is the Displacements by Bruce Holsinger. It's probably about two years old now, but it's a great read. Oh my goodness, he is a fabulous writer, and the Displacements is a climate thriller, and I'll also make sure to put the link to my interview with Bruce Holsinger in the show notes. Oh, and I'm going to give one more recommendation. It is a little book. It's called Days at the Morasaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagasawa. I just love that little book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really enjoyed that one. I think it came out in German slightly earlier than it did in English, so because it was a Japanese book, I thought, okay, I can also read the German translation. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. I mean, when I first read it I kind of I don't know, I kind of thought, well, I'd expected a little bit more. But then eventually it kind of stuck with me for a while and I kept thinking about it. And it's been a few months and I'm still thinking about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, it's one of those lingering stories and I love it when a book stays with me for a while. Plus, I'm finding more and more I'm enjoying reading books in translation, the cadence and the lilt of the text. Books in translation are wonderful tools to help writers discover more about their own writing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. I think every culture has their own style of writing in a way, and you can still hear that through the translation, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, Stephanie, you mentioned that you read in both German and English. Which language is your preferred language to read a good book in?
Speaker 2:English actually. Yes, I mean, it also has to do with my job, so I would say that about 80 to 90% of the books I read are in English, and then the rest would be German titles picked up from the library or the local bookshop. I mean, I like to read books in the language they were written in, if I speak that language, obviously, but a lot of this art of writing gets lost in translation. Even translators who do a fabulous job, there's still this tiny thing that always gets lost. So if I can, then I'll try to read it in the original, but obviously I don't speak all the languages in the world, and so a lot of books would be read in translation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Are there any local authors in your area that you could recommend?
Speaker 2:Something I always recommend if you are into. I wouldn't call it fantasy, but kind of like mysterious, very bookish worlds with weird but oftentimes very friendly monsters. There is an author called Walter Möres and he wrote a series of books that are sort of like loosely connected and they all take place in this fabulous world, and some of them are really about books and quite with quite a bookish theme. So there's one called the City of Dreaming Books the title itself is quite nice and then there's the Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, and I think the third, like in that series, is planned for sometime in the future. But he wrote other books that are connected with that, and one of those came out about two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:I love that title the City of Dreaming Books. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I highly recommend it. I mean it's a unique writer that has Like. The protagonist is a dragon who grew up on this castle where all of the dragons are poets, and then he comes to the city of dreaming books where all of the people are booksellers and antiquarian booksellers and publishers and editors and all of that and there's like an labyrinth underneath the city that's full of books.
Speaker 1:And I'll make sure to put links to all of the books we've talked about on this episode today in the show notes. Stephanie, are there any authors you've discovered on Instagram who you might not have found otherwise?
Speaker 2:Quite a few. Actually, as I said before, it's very bad for your bank code I keep repeating myself, but I found quite a few new authors. Ethan Dweller, the one I recommended earlier, he's actually one of them. He's an author I came across on Instagram and I'm sure I probably never would have seen any of his books over here. Well, at least so far they haven't been translated yet, so I wouldn't see them in the bookshop. That's something that is quite neat about social media. James Farhi, you interviewed him, I think as well.
Speaker 1:And while not all authors will comment or communicate with followers on social media, many of them do, and one of them is, of course, james Farhi.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but exactly, I already said earlier that it's also a nice way for authors to get in contact with their readers and obviously for the readers it's a complete highlight when an author, and maybe even a best-selling author, likes your comment or says thank you or something.
Speaker 1:Another author I'm going to give a shout out to, just because he's such a sweetheart, and one of my favourite authors is TJ Klune. Have you read the House in the Cerulean Sea? I have, yeah, I enjoyed the art a lot, yeah, and in the Lives of Puppets? I mean, all his books are wonderful. I wanted to ask you before you go is Germany banning books?
Speaker 2:No, thankfully they aren't Not yet. At least you never know what's going to happen. But no, thankfully not so far. So we're quite lucky.
Speaker 1:Yes, you are. It's been pretty bad over here in the States.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've read about that. I didn't heard about that. It's horrible.
Speaker 1:Yes, it sure is, Stephanie. I've had a great time chatting with you. Thank you for being a guest on the Bookshop podcast, and where can people find you? On Instagram.
Speaker 2:So my Instagram handle is the constant reader. So that's the underscore, constant underscore reader.
Speaker 1:Thanks, again, Stephanie, and I will see you on Instagram. Well, thank you very much. It was great chatting with you. You've been listening to my conversation with fellow book lover, Stephanie Caners. To find out more about the Bookshop podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, Instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop podcast is written and produced by me, Mandy Jackson Beverly, Theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy Adrian Otterhan and graphic design by Francis Farahla. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.