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MCN MUSIC & BOOKS
SEPTEMBER 8, 2011 • VOL 2, ISSUE 8
Dusty delights Photo: Creative Commons/Brewbooks
Melbourne’s secondhand bookstores are a treasure trove of literary gems. By Karen Healey
spectacle. “Booooks,” one zombie in a torn netball uniform moaned as she clambered over the piles. “Boooooks!” Verity Matthews of City Basement Books, now located on Flinders Street, says she was delighted by the mob. “I felt like I’d created a little piece of Melbourne’s underground history, and it cemented my love of this city. Our skip went viral! I loved that people flocked all day and night; we’d come in each morning to an empty skip. I’m just glad the books found some kind homes.”
“People couldn’t understand that the Bookroom had disappeared” – Kay Craddock
Photo: Karen Healey
Melburnians clearly love secondhand books – when they can get them for free. But was this enthusiasm matched by a willingness to walk into the bookstores? After all, City Basement Books temporarily closed up shop.
Bookish zombies rummage through the famous skip
A secondhand bookstore can offer something to every reader
Kay Craddock, secondhand and antiquarian bookseller, thinks that customers have a tendency to assume secondhand bookstores will always be there, despite the pressures of retail. When she set up shop in the Collins Street premises that had previously held Presbyterian Bookroom, customers of the old shop wandered in for over a decade, confused about its disappearance. “People couldn’t understand that the Bookroom had disappeared,” Craddock says. Despite the ten year gap between visits, “they were absolutely horrified. It wasn’t worth saying to them, well, this is probably why.” Secondhand bookstores, after all, are business ventures, and they’re as vulnerable to infrequent customer visits as any other retail establishment. They’re also as alive as any other business to the opportunities and dangers potentially presented by new technologies. Matthews notes that City Basement Books has been selling books online for a decade. “We post an armful of packages most days - some to Australian customers, some overseas anywhere from Adelaide to Zagreb.” But the internet business isn’t big money: “It pays for the internet connection, but it would be hard to make a living from it. It doesn’t replace having an actual bookshop.” Craddock also uses the internet in her business. However, both women agree that the growing popularity of the ebook, cited as one cause of giant bookseller Borders’ decline, has not yet imperiled their livelihood - and may never. “One could anticipate there being a period ten, twenty, thirty years down the track when there’s perhaps a dearth of books from this era,” Craddock says. “If the majority of the good books will be [solely] published electronically, which I don’t believe they will.” Matthews is even more op-
timistic. “Regardless of ebooks, I think there will always be a place for secondhand bookshops. People have a genuine affection for these places that goes beyond the love of reading, to embrace the love of books themselves as objects of desire. My customers like breathing dust and tracing their fingers over spines and browsing through all the possibilities; it’s a sensual pleasure. I can download a copy of Jane Eyre from [copyright free ebook website] Project Gutenberg, but I’d rather read my familiar old Penguin edition. The physicality of books seems to me to be an indispensable aid to memory.” “That said, I can also download ebooks from [Project] Gutenberg that I have not seen in 15 years of bookselling. Ebooks have altered and, in some cases, done away with the rarity of certain titles and authors. It’s good news for readers even if circumstances are as tough as ever for collectors - who will always want the book itself, whether they actually read it or not.”
“I think there will always be a place for secondhand bookshops” – Verity Matthews
However, the internet has changed the way some collectors approach the acquisition of the book itself, Matthews says. “Books I once considered rare may turn out to be common as dirt and vice versa. Some customers stand in front of our shelves consulting their iPhones to see if they can find better or cheaper copies elsewhere. It takes some getting
Photo: Creative Commons/Meenakshi Madhavan
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n May 2010, City Basement Books, a secondhand bookstore on Elizabeth Street, moved premises, and cleaned house in the process, clearing shelves of thousands of secondhand books. Many were packed up for the new location. Many more were driven to a paper recycling factory. The remainder were tossed into a skip parked by the bookstore. Melburnians gathered in hordes. As blogger Anthony Holmes put it: “Apparently people had been crowded around the skip taking out books for a good part of the afternoon and into the evening. So we stopped by it. And stopped by it again as we went home after dinner.” Word of mouth spread, and a post announcing the skip was made to popular social media community Melbourne Maniacs: “Hey guys, there’s a huge skip filling up with books outside City Basement Books on Elizabeth and Flinders - free for all, which explains the shark frenzy happening! Reckon it’ll go on for a while, and the skip is filling up faster than all the bookophiles can empty it!” When the participants of a Zombie Shuffle, in tainted clothes and liberally painted with false blood arrived, the skip became a true Melbourne
The thrill of the chase - finding the book you’re after can be half the fun
used to, but I’m an enthusiastic internet and ebook consumer myself, so you won’t see me begrudging anyone else.” Where do the books come from? “We are in the fortunate position of being offered a lot of material,” Craddock says. Matthews is more of a hunter-gatherer: “We get a lot of deceased estates and house-moving and moribund libraries and retired academics. And I can’t go past a garage sale or an op shop. I’ve been a regular customer at the Kew Library Sale for years. I’m not just buying books for myself, I’m buying for everyone. It’s awful to see someone leave the shop empty-handed.” Craddock finds that war books and children’s books are the most popular. “Military books are a very broad area, and a very active one. People want [children’s books] for themselves, for their children, or their grandchildren.” Matthews keeps an eye out for what she calls sure sellers, which include authors as diverse as Charles Bukowski, Mary Grant Bruce, William S Burroughs, Philip K Dick, Dr Seuss, Jacques Derrida, HP Lovecraft, Thucydides, Enid Blyton, and Georgette Heyer.
“Then there are the popular subjects like dinosaurs or polar exploration or philosophy. Some people came down recently to talk to me about the bible, and I was able to reassure them that it was still very much a bestseller.” And the not-so-sure sellers? “Dan Brown’s probably the worst lately,” Matthews says. “You can’t even give him away, and I’ve tried.” Whether Melburnians are getting their reading material online, from a bricks-and-mortar retailer, or from digging around in a skip, both women agree that people are not reading less. “If people were reading less, there wouldn’t be any need for electronic books,” Craddock says. And there is certainly still a place for secondhand books in Melbourne. One need look no further for proof than to the location of Kay Craddock’s shop in the Paris end of Collins Street, among the world’s most exclusive brands. “Our international colleagues are surprised that a small business such as ours can survive in such a prestigious and prominent part of the city,” Craddock says, smiling. “But that’s Melbourne.”