When I was made redundant from my job running a research library at Otago University, I
was offered a job in a small bookshop in South Dunedin. The product was crap: porn and
crime magazines. I was a seventies liberal; I thought it didn’t matter what people read. But
these magazines had genuine autopsy and crime scene photos, and I found them absolutely
vile and came to hate the people buying them.
After 18 months I was so depressed I was at the doctor’s looking for therapy. My wife Carol,
who is a librarian, said: ‘Why not start up your own bookshop and show them how it’s done?’
I said: ‘For one very good reason – I haven’t got the courage’. She gave me the look wives
give husbands when they are disappointed in them, so I decided to give it a go.
We opened on 4 July 2004 – Independence Day! Carol thought of the name. She sat bolt
upright at 2am and said: ‘Read On!’
I said: ‘Done’.
I wasn’t having 20 wooden bookshelves that didn’t match. We got standard metal shelving –
as in libraries – and good carpet and lighting. We have classical music or jazz playing, and a
couple of easy chairs, which lonely pensioners take full advantage of.
We don’t accept any rubbish. A book has to look as if it has been read only once, with care.
We don’t have signs on the shelves. We encourage people to ask where things are so we can
direct them to the section or the book. If you hand a book to a customer, it’s harder for them
to let it go.
I rub all the book covers with eucalyptus oil. It has antibacterial properties, and it makes the
shop smell fantastic. People remember the little things about places.
Everybody says: ‘Are you making money?’ I say: ‘No.’ I make less than a beneficiary. It’s a
scary existence, but it’s a joy to be self-employed.
The other joy is what I call ‘rat running’. I run around the streets – like a rat runs and sniffs
and scrabbles about – going to the op shops, buying books. Then I bring them back here and
clean them up.
When I was a student at Victoria University in Wellington, I used to think all businessmen
were bastards. Now that I’m one of them, I just love it. We pay tens of thousands of dollars a
year for our stock. That goes into people’s pockets and puts money back into circulation.
When you run a small business, the important thing is cash flow. When people come in with a
carton of books, I might offer $50. They often say: ‘I might as well give them to charity’.
They don’t understand that if you don’t have money on hand to pay bills, you go bankrupt.
Unless you’ve been in business, you have no idea.
The customers are just wonderful. We’ve made so many friends in this place. We get asked
out to morning and afternoon tea, and dinner and have them round to our place. There are
several women in their eighties who bring me morning tea and flowers – and they can get
quite competitive about it!
I spend a lot of the day sitting in my big chair in the window, reading and drinking coffee. I
swing around and look out into the mall. I’ve seen drug deals, assaults, shoplifters being
apprehended, people courting, marriages breaking up.
One day an old pensioner trawled across the mall and came into the shop for the first time. I
looked up from the newspaper and he said, ‘You live the life of Riley, don’t you?’ I said, ‘I
believe I do’. He turned and walked out. Three days later, he did the same thing.
I can’t think of a more wonderful thing to do than sell books. The thousands of hours of
pleasure our customers get from reading them. I feel I’m doing a bit of good.
Mike Hamblyn no longer runs his Dunedin bookshop
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