Detail of the shop window of the Poppies bookstore in October.
There are ideas as fleeting as a star and others that last a lifetime... specifically 22 years of a life, the time that the writer Laura Riñón had been dreaming of having a bookstore like the newly opened Poppies in October.
Located at number 60 of Calle Pelayo in Madrid, halfway between Chueca and Salesas, the place is unmissable, you just have to follow the red color of the old typewriter and the poppies that adorn its window. Once inside, you will find yourself at home, Laura's authentic claim.
" poppies in october it is a home. I wanted to create a place at street level where, upon entering, you would feel at home. That the soul or the heart was the bookstore, but that deep down it was a place to be comfortable and in which to stop for a moment from all this speed with which we live. A magical place. Somehow, to transfer that magic that seems to be only in novels to the real world", she tells Traveler.es.
Because the dream bookstore that Laura opened on January 11, the day of her birthday, she was always in her head as you can see it today: she first fictionalized her in her third novel Poppies in October, from which she takes her name, and then she shaped it into this bright place where you can accompany your reading with a glass of wine or a coffee, even if it is not a typical cafeteria.
As a living room, one of the reading corners of the Poppies bookstore in October.
THE ORIGIN
The bookstore's original idea was to call the space as it does in the novel, that is, Jo's Bookstore –in fact, one of the reading corners has been dedicated to the well-known character from Little Women–, but that very Spanish desire to strangle the sound of the J against the palate was going to make it difficult to understand its meaning, so she chose to borrow the title of her third book: Poppies in October. In the rest he was faithful to the original idea of it.
"Six months ago I decided to take Jo's Bookstore out of fiction and turn it into reality. When I was setting it up, many people wanted to advise me – I have many interior designer and decorator friends – but I had it so clear... Even the smallest detail of the bookstore is my invention. The ceiling and the blue curtains like the sky, the messages on the walls, the characters that are in the paintings... Everything was like that in my head," Laura tells me.
An idyllic space that attracts a "very me, very Laura" type of client, as the writer explains: "I attract readers or people who pass by on the street and see a place like this and decide to enter because they They are struck by the same thing as me. A very special connection is then created."
El Rincón de Jo, at the Poppies bookstore in October.
THE CONNECTION
A connection that is also reflected in the type of books that the client looks for and ends up finding in the bookstore. "It's very nice when I see that my choice of books matches his criteria, because I could have more commercial or children's literature, but I don't have it because I don't know him that well. I couldn't sell it, because It would not coincide with the way in which I think books should be sold, which is with great care and affection", Laura continues with her argument.
Something that honors her and that in reality what she achieves is that any recommendation that the bookstore makes you responds to the criteria of experience and the taste for reading –Laura usually reads fifty books every year–: "that, if you think about it , there are very few", he confesses to me humbly and without a hint of pretense, while reminding me that "Laura is Poppies in October and Poppies in October is Laura. I think that 50% of this place is that I am here, and I also love it, because it is my passion. I really like people and books and I have everything here."
The writer Laura Rin has read each and every one of the books that she sells in Poppies in October.
TYPE OF BOOKS
"Above all I sell 'my bookstore', those that I can recommend. I have a criterion, good or bad, but I have it. I've read all the ones in the bookstore (except for the last five novels that I have just incorporated)", Laura tells me, who mostly sells contemporary literature, although she also has essential 'background books'.
She also boasts an original section that she calls 'the first influencers', which are books on cinema, music, authors, biographies, letters... In fact, he has installed a mailbox so that readers who come can write a letter and send it: "I have envelopes, stamps, everything. They write to whoever they want and I'll make sure they reach their destination," she tells me excited to be an initiative that has been very well received by its customers.
You are in charge of writing the letter and Laura that it reaches its destination.
THE MESSAGES AND THE PICTURES
Another very careful aspect in Poppies in October are the characters in the paintings and the messages that Laura has arranged throughout the space. The room is presided over by her favorite authors, especially American literature: Paul Auster, Sam Shepard, Dickens, Capote, Hemingway, Harper Lee and then, in the center of the wall composition, "because she is the soul and the teacher", Virginia Woolf. The only Spanish author who shares a poster is Manuel Vicent, with a large blank space below his photograph that reflects Laura's wish that the writer visit the bookstore one day and put her signature on it.
She also exhibits many cinema photographs (including a portrait of Robin Williams, "a necessary person in life", in Laura's words), because she believes that literature is the basis of everything, including cinema and even music. "Everything starts with a story to tell, whether it's a song or a movie," she explains to me.
And since we are in the era of messages, she has wanted to transfer to the bookstore some very good phrases from authors such as Bukowski or Hemingway ("Fuck literature") and even she has added a homegrown one on the stair wall that sums up life, her life: "Once upon a time there was a closed door, an open window and a brave woman. End".
Message created by Laura and summary of her own existence.
CULTURAL SPACE
Something more than a place to buy books is Poppies in October, that's why the spaces in the basement of the premises have been enabled to receive events or exhibitions, also informative talks, reading clubs, workshops –such as the epistolary that has just taken place– or book presentations and talks with authors, such as Carmen Posadas, David Vicente or Màxim Huertas.