THE NARRATIVE ARC
How a small local bookshop grew into the largest bookstore in Kyiv
Despite the ongoing war, Ukrainian culture finds and founds new senses
What am I doing?
I’m reading Book Lovers by Emily Henry.
Where am I?
I’m right in the centre of Ukraine’s capital.
I’m on Khreshchatyk, the main street in Kyiv.
I’m in a new bookstore Sens: it has just opened and it has been flooded with waves of book-hungry visitors.
I came to eat some pages, too.
While getting here, I got bombarded by a light hail of tiny and a bit feisty grains of ice falling from the sky onto my head. It was an unusual incident: in Ukraine, we’re used to other kinds of bombardment. The weather has been getting weird lately with heavy fog meeting us in the morning and leading us to bed at night. The rest of February is expected to be unusually warm. Is it an early spring? I’m not a meteorologist but I wouldn’t mind warming up.
An early spring is inspiring.
What can be even more inspiring than that?
Books and bookstores, especially when they defy odds and expectations.
