World's Greatest Book "Box"
The Trumauer Les(e)bar
I have been in Austria for several days, first in Vienna, now in Trumau, a small town not too far south of Vienna and my real desination on this trip.
Trumau will not appear in many travel guides, but it does have a few things worth seeing. There is a small Catholic university housed in Schloß Trumau, a 17th-century castle. My daughter studied there a year ago, and I am here picking up some belongings that she had to leave behind when she returned home last summer.
There is also a nice church, in the graveyard of which stands a monument to the Soviet soldiers who died in this area during World War II. Nearby is a Dreifaltigkeitssäule, a column honoring the Holy Trinity, erected in the early 18th-century and one of many in various towns here imitating the monumental column standing in central Vienna as a memorial of the plague. The river Triesting flows picturesquely through town.
But tonight I have an unlikely tourist attraction for you: the world’s greatest book box.
Actually, that is hardly an appropriate name for it, because it isn’t even a box at all. Back home in the States, one often sees little boxes erected outside where people can “leave a book, take a book.” They generally hold two or three dozen books. I’ve seen similar things in the UK, and I imagine they exist elsewhere as well.
But Trumau doesn’t just have a little box. It has the “Les(e)bar,” an entire former telephone booth that has been transformed into a free book exchange.
You can see a picture of it above, and one of its interior below, as best I could capture it while standing on one leg and using the other foot to hold the door open. (I have not even removed my authentic thumb hovering in the corner of the photo.) The names of famous authors are printed all over it. Its front window invites you to “take a book, read a book, bring a book.”
The top reads “LESBAR,” with an extra little “e” stuck in the middle. “Lesbar” means readable, but with the extra “e” it becomes a “Lesebar”: a bar for reading. Very nice.
As you can imagine, this is quite a temptation. I have a few titles at home that came from this “Lesebar” the last time I was in Trumau. This time, however, I need all available suitcase space for my daughter’s belongings, so I have restrained myself. I may have taken one small volume as a present for another child. (Shhh, don’t give me away.) But I have otherwise behaved myself.
I did contribute to the cause, however. Among my daughter’s things was a small, German pop-introduction to philosophy that I had left with her a year ago but that neither of us was likely to read. Last night I left it there in the Lesebar. This afternoon I happened to be passing by and, to my delight, saw a woman take it away with her.
Perhaps this “book booth” is not by itself a sufficient reason to make a trip all the way to Trumau. Or maybe it is. In any case, should you ever find yourself out this way, I advise you to take a book, read a book, and bring a book.
And what a list of authors on the door! Particularly enjoyed seeing 'Bert Brecht'.