Toulouse. Minimum library, for a maximum of finds
Rue Pargaminières, not far from the Music Conservatory, Dominique Barbolosi has been welcoming you to his bookstore since 1978 to the sound of rock. blues or jazz depending on the mood of the moment: “I bought my first jazz record when I was 8, he explains, a record by Big Joe Turner, the singer of Count Basie, and since then I have needed my daily dose of music.” Yet Dominique does not sell vinyl or CDs, but books, preferably second-hand. They are everywhere in his little shop “but they are all sorted by category” he specifies. The content actually ranges from art books to detective novels, children’s books or cookery and gardening or sewing “you can even find philosophical essays, he says. and the maximum price here is 35 euros for the La Pléiade collection “This is the kingdom of second-hand books, as a sign at the entrance indicates, “because the Buildings of France did not want it to be outside. The shop is called Minimum in reference to the animal character from the comic book series Chlorophylle from the 1950s which appeared in the Tintin newspaper.
Jean pushes the door of the store, a plastic bag in his hand, he comes for a transaction “I’m the tout” he exclaims, taking out the few books that have come directly from Emmaüs.
Here there are as many sellers as buyers, but the clientele has become more feminized admits Dominique. Having passed the age of seventy, he goes much less often to the flea markets, he who regularly frequented the flea markets of nearby Saint-Sernin. The buyers are regulars who know the shop or sometimes foreigners because it also has a shelf of the same books in English “and there have been customers who have paid for their books and I’m still waiting for them to come and pick them up” s’ he amused. But Dominique has already taken over the classification of his books by singing jazz tunes that he knows by heart.