We bought our bookshop on Gumtree. In 2019, when the lovely Bookshop at Queenscliff in Victoria came up for sale, my wife, Jayne Tuttle, and I were living in Paris working in advertising.
“Oh no!” she said. “Hope someone good buys it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Us”.
She thought I’d lost it. We had been edging our way back to the coastal Victorian town where her dad lives for some time, but a bookshop? Wasn’t that madness?
But I was certain it was right. A shift to something with meaning, and hope, in uncertain times. I refused to believe that physical books and bookshops were dying, as some would have you believe. We only had to spend time in our neighbourhood to know this. George Whitman, the late owner of Shakespeare and Company, became the poster boy for what would become the new iteration of The Bookshop at Queenscliff. George’s belief in books and the goodness of people was unwavering. “The business of books is the business of life,” he said. Books weren’t going anywhere.
George was right. Five years later, our shop is still here, despite the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis, and of course, Covid. Though there were times during the pandemic when things seemed impossible, it was how we truly got to know our community, their dogs, their back yards, their homemade jams – from lots of phone and email recommendations to passing books through doorways, or deliveries to doorsteps often 10 minutes after being ordered.
We made it our mission to keep the shop alive, and in some ways our bookshop was built during this time. After life overseas it showed us the power of community and the undying love people have for books and for bookshops. It seemed like our community decided they wanted us to survive, and I wanted to repay that faith and commitment by doing whatever I could to get them their books, like driving 35 minutes to deliver a $12 paperback to an excited kid.
For those in despair at the downfall of Booktopia, never fear: bookshops are still here. The ones down the street, around the corner, the one you drive past or walk past, or look at online. Through the rise and fall of the Borders and the chains, the Amazons and ebooks, the Booktopias and Big Ws, the local bookshop has struggled through, for the passion and joy of putting the right book in the right person’s hand. They’ll be here after the next existential threat too, whatever that might be.
after newsletter promotion
Any loss of a bookshop is devastating – even Booktopia, if it does close down. I’m sure most booksellers agree that no matter what, the priority is that people have access to books. And I’m sad for the jobs lost and concerned for publishers that will suffer as a result.
But I’m not sad to see the model go. Large-scale, faceless, algorithm-based bookselling is the antithesis to the human experience of going into a bookshop, especially an independent one that has been lovingly curated by people who care deeply about books.
And it’s more than that. A local independent bookshop is part of the cultural capital of a town or city. It is a meeting place of ideas and discussion. It promotes creativity, art and storytelling. It donates actual money to local schools, writing groups, theatre groups, even sporting clubs. The owners more than likely live in the same area. They are part of the community.
As the world grows more hostile, binary and inflamed, we look to books to remind us of life’s complexity and grey areas, of wonder, learning and expansion. They open our minds, soften our hearts, ground us, connect us and free us.
I refuse to believe books and good bookshops will ever die. They are a human rather than commercial interest. As long as we’re here, we will need to read: to collect and share and discuss books is one of the great joys of life.