So far, I’ve got data from four bookshops, one in the UK (Foyles – London), two in The Netherlands (De Vries van Stockum – The Hague; Boekhandel Broekhuis – Almelo) and one in Germany (Dussmann – Berlin). On the start of this new project and the call for data from readers of this blog, see yesterday’s post. Contributions very welcome!

Since it is summer, we decided to cycle to Rotterdam yesterday (20 kms, lovely weather, little wind) to visit bookshop Donner there, our first visit, and what a surprise it was. It proved a veritable book buyer’s paradise! With a large linguistic section it even had a usage guide on display, Friederike de Raat’s Een Boek Vol Taalfouten – inexpensive, but already from 2019. Doesn’t Dutch have any more recent usage guides, I wonder? Interestingly, it was placed in the Cadeau section, meant to give away as a present.

I decided to buy it, so the only usage guides left are now Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style and a Strunk and White (which clearly remains popular despite Geoff Pulum’s rightfully scathing criticism of it). So most amazing of all to me was actually their presence in this Dutch bookshop. English usage guides for Dutch readers, hmmm, and none for Dutch left after my visit. (And I’m not your average buyer of usage guides to begin with.) But in addition, the display showed many writing guides for Duthch as well. (Not the same as usage guides, though.)

Many interesting books on language though, like Khalid Mourigh’s Denkend aan Hollands, Gaston Dorren‘s Zeven Talen in Zeven Dagen and the Atlas van de Nederlandse Taal. As well as a selection of taalboekjes (see yesterday’s post for a definition) – placed under Cadeau. My husband suggested that I would have Een Boek Vol Taalfouten gift-wrapped, but no, I’m planning to read it myself.

Looking forward to more of this!