Happiness undefined: how Heidelberg gave me back my English books

What I remember about arriving in Germany two years ago is not the beer or the punctual trains. It is how difficult it turned out to be to buy a novel in English. I kept walking into bookshops, scanning the shelves, walking out with nothing. No English fiction anywhere. I missed my monthly Reader's Digest, and I missed reading an English newspaper over breakfast.

My German is still not strong enough for a novel, so all those books around me were decoration rather than company. Reading the news online helped a little, but a screen cannot replace a slow afternoon with The Sunday Times, or the pleasure of standing in a shop trying to decide which book to begin. Every so often a kiosk would have an English paper. Then I would see the price and put my excitement away again. There were weeks when the whole business made me feel strangely handicapped, and sad more often than I liked to admit.

One paperback at Munich Airport

The first real relief came at Munich Airport, a year ago, on my way home to visit family. There was a shelf of English titles, and I bought Dead Europe without thinking twice, mostly so that I would have company on the long flight back.

Heidelberg, where people answer in English

A few months ago I moved to Heidelberg. I fell for the place immediately, and spent my first two weeks exploring it on foot. The other surprise was how much English I heard in the street. Students, researchers and people on work contracts arrive here from everywhere, which explains it. After work I would take the direct bus to Bismarckplatz and simply wander, evening after evening, mostly without a plan.

Then one evening, walking along the Hauptstrasse, I went past a bookshop and stopped. Was that a row of English titles facing out at me? I went in to check. There was a whole rack of English novels, and I said something to the girl at the counter that probably made no sense at all. I spent the rest of the evening in there, going through every title, and left only because they were closing. That was enough to make my week.

Antiquariat Hatry, and the spiral staircase

Or so I believed, until a few days later. Wandering dreamily past the Schneeball, or snowball, cafes and shops, I noticed piles of books set out on the pavement. The sign above them said Antiquariat Hatry. Up close, many of the books were old. I went in and lost myself in the place: old and new stock, English and German, classics, self-help, modern fiction, shelf after shelf of it. I could hardly take in that a shop of that size, full of second-hand and new books, existed in the city where I was living.

Within an hour I was sitting on the floor with an old classic open in my hands and piles of books around me on every side. I was so absorbed that I never even went up the beautiful spiral stairway to see the rest of the shop. It felt like my tenth birthday, when my parents gave in to my request for books as presents and greeted me in the morning with a pile of Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree collection and other fantasy novels. Complete bliss.

The evening Jokers sorted me out

Some months on, I was having a run of bad days: low, stressed, and easily thrown. One particular evening I knew that going straight home from work would finish me. I wanted fresh air and a clear head. I wanted to talk to someone, but all my friends are in other cities now, and I did not want to burden them with my complaining. I had no plan for the city, but I went out anyway.

Strolling past UniversitatsPlatz, I stopped at my favourite Gummi Bear shop and bought a small pack of Mango Fruchtgummi, then carried on walking back and forth. On the way back I noticed Jokers, a large, glossy-looking bookstore. I went in expecting greeting cards, calendars and German books. Instead, more shelves of English titles. I picked up one novel after another until I settled on two, paid for my newest possessions, and walked out of the shop smiling.

I used to say that money could not buy happiness. I had not thought of a bookshop.