Build bridges between books and people. He could sell you a novel in an electro festival, a feminist essay around a militant stand or (more rarely) a literary UFO on a village square. Matthieu Carlier, founder of the Rackstrooning Bookstore Tappingmade the choice to leave the walls to meet all audiences. More than a bookseller, it is a passer who transformed a van and a few mobile shelves into real Cultural and political commitment space. Encounter.
In Toulouse, the bookstore is based at 7, place de Damloup. © Tage
A nomadic journey, between letters, journalism and activism
Born in the Paris region, Matthieu followed modern letters studies at the Sorbonne before fly to foreigners. Latin America, Asia, Europe …
I spent my time traveling, hitchhiking most of the time, “he told independent opinion.
Back, he becomes journalist For various media between Paris, Montreal or Argentina. But a desire tap him:
The bookstore was always in a corner of my head, since I wanted to live from my writings. And that has never been the case. “
So he decides to reinvent himself: Live with books, if not from her bookss. Noise was born in 2023 in Toulouse to this impulse, but also from a deep commitment.
The goal was militant too. […] Whether eco -feminism, decolonialism, decrease, the rights of LGBT people, racialized people […] Always these have been subjects that particularly touch me, “he said.
Causes that structure not only its selection, but also its way of making the bookstore.
Remove the walls to open the spirits
The idea of a traveling bookstore is not trivial: it is anchored in a political gesture.
There are a lot of people who do not feel legitimate when entering a bookstore, “says Matthieu.
And add:
Removing the walls, removing the doors, allows people to come and chat much more easily. “
The very form of noise becomes a tool for cultural mediation, even democratization.
© Tage
Its stand, still carefully arranged, even attracts passers -by who do not read.
If only the book as an object attracts. Small houses always make efforts for their covers, and make very beautiful things, “he said.
And if the selection is demanding, eIt is not intended to be (especially) elitist.
I offer things we can talk about. From the start, the idea was to put the small publishing houses forward, and the authors and the authors who pass under the radar and who, however, are extremely talented and talented. “
The promise? A “Intellectual Voyage” that is stimulating and full of discoveries.
Books for all, really all
Far from addressing only a convinced audience, Tapping assumes and claims are ambition to speak to all.
I even have apolitized or right people who come to ask me questions. […] In general, people are receptive. “
By going to the Festival invivéncia (Toulouse), on the layout of the A64, via the Pougniq (Salles, Gironde) and currently the resistance fighters (Saint-Hilaire-de-Briouze, Orne), Matthieu hears “Bring the bookstore where it is not”. The accessibility of its references also involves their price, and the bookseller makes it a point of honor to select the lowest.
I make sure, to offer books that are affordable […]less than ten euros if possible. “
In festival, the public is diverse, curious. Human contact is essential. And the nomadic bookseller hit the bull’s eye with his authenticity.
I come from a popular environment. […] I think that, to see people who come from a popular environment or from the cities, who open in the book, it has an influence. “
The bookstore offers essays, novels, bands, poetry and fiction. © Tage
Minimal logistics for maximum impact
On the roads, Matthieu triballe approximately 500 referencessometimes much less when it circulates by bike in the Toulouse region. “I don’t want to break my back either,” he jokes. But whatever the quantity: it is the quality of the selections that counts. In his last favoriteshe quotes in particular The similar mountain by René Daumal, “a very small novel […] on the possibility that there is a world that one cannot conceive. “Or Let’s be woke by Pierre Tevanian, “a book on the defense of wokism, but ironically”.
As long as we know how to guide people […] It can really create a universe that makes you want to enter. “
Read to campaign, or campaign to read?
Each noise, no proselytism. The book is a tool, not an injunction. “Do you have to read to be an activist? I don’t think so,” he said with honesty, even quoting a militant friend whose commitment was born … One Piece. But the book allows you to deepen, take the time, qualify.
He also proposes to land, to take an entertainment which is not necessarily obvious. […] There is a temporality which is very different, since that is what people want. “
This lucid look nourishes a broader hope: that of a return in the sense. Matthew observes “A new vigor” In relation to literature, a desire to slow down, to think. In a world saturated with screens, the book becomes a refuge again.
A future to write
After two years of tours and meetings, tapages does not run out of steam. “For the moment I am satisfied with what’s going on”he says, wishing to give himself time to consider future developments. He thinks of opening a fixed hub one day, perhaps, but without giving up the freedom of the movement.
Matthew concludes:
The world of the bookstore is seen as something extremely stowed, and that’s true. […] I arrived in total self -taught. What I like is to make this junction between the popular class and the world of the book. “
And obviously, it works. Because noise is less a bookstore than a call: to curiosity, thought, dialogue. And above all, to take the Books Route, otherwise.
>> Practical info:
The Tapage bookstore will be present from August 13 to 17 at the Iota Festival, on the island of Oléron, before a return to Toulouse in September.
>> Read also: the electric forest reinvents cinema from Toulouse
