Happy National Bookstore Day!!!

"He walked among the bookstore shelves, hearing Muzak in the air. There were rows of handsome covers, prosperous and assured. He felt a fine excitement, hefting a new book, fitting hand over sleek spine, seeing lines of type jitter past his thumb as he let the pages fall. He was a young man, shrewd in his fervors, who knew there were books he wanted to read and others he absolutely had to own, the ones that gesture in special ways, that have a rareness or daring, a charge of heat that stains the air around them."
- Don Delillo, Mao II

"Jake went in, aware that he had, for the first time in three weeks, opened a door without hoping madly to find another world on the other side. A bell jingled overhead. The mild, spicy smell of old books hit him, and the smell was somehow like coming home"
- Stephen King, The Waste Lands

Now get off your computer and buy some books!

Sunrise On The New Avenue

Naysayers and e-traitors, step aside! I have visited the latest kid on the block and can confidently assure you that that bricks and mortar book selling is alive, well and in very good hands thanks to Chris and his team at The Avenue Bookstore. Any tears you might still be shedding over the loss of the much-loved Sunflower can now be flicked away with glee thanks to the arrival of The Avenue's sister store in Elsternwick. Fans of the original Avenue will instantly feel at home - it's as if Chris took a shrink ray and transplanted the result into the somewhat smaller Glenhuntly Road space. Indeed, there is something surreal about walking around the site of a shop in which I practically used to live only to find it replaced by a midget replica of my other literary home. Initial headspin aside, I love what they've done with place!

I'm glad to see that The Avenue Bookstore Elsternwick has retained all the things that made Sunflower so great (including, but not limited to, the city's best Judaica section and some of the amazing staff). Add to that everything we know and love about The Avenue Bookstore Albert Park and we've all been gifted with one hell of a great store that, while small, still packs a serious literary punch.

It was a gutsy move on Chris's part, not only to expand his golden fiefdom but to do so on what amounts to the Melbourne Jewish community's ancient literary burial ground. Thankfully for all involved it has paid off. The Avenue Bookstore Elsternwick is a fresh, vibrant little shop sure to please old Sunflowers and new visitors alike. Moreover, it might coax a few of you e-tragics and Book Depositors away from your screens and into a good ol' fashioned bookstore. Don't resist the call. Your soul will thank you for it.

A Postcard From Purgatory

The abandoned husk of a Borders megastore languishes beside the highway, a sad portent of things once to come, now a grim reality.

Wait, let me start again.

It has been six days, four hours and twenty eight minutes since I last visited a bookstore; the longest I have ever gone without. My worst nightmare has come true. I am in a city with no literary soul. If once there was one, it has long since been exorcised. For this weary traveller, Detroit exemplifies the worst possible outcome of late 90s scorched earth commercial expansion - the establishment of huge barns that crushed the small indie sellers and then, when economic clouds began to stir, closed down leaving entire areas bereft of books. It's quite astounding. There are pretty much no bookstores to be found unless you are willing to turn to one of the great "white knights" of middle America, Barnes & Noble (which still has a strong, albeit soulless presence) or just give up altogether and hit Amazon. It is a sad, sad state of affairs.

Yet a bit of research suggests that all is not completely lost. There are a couple around if I'm willing to drive for a while. I guess I have no choice. But I won't have the joy of walking along any random street and stumbling upon a trove of hidden bookish treasure. God I love Melbourne.

This is the sound of a reader in despair.

Sunflower Update: Three Week Reprieve

Just a quick one to let you all know that Sunflower Bookstore will remain open for 3 more weeks because the builders couldn't start on time (they're totally renovating the shop before it opens as The Avenue Elsternwick). That means for three weeks there will exist in Melbourne the greatest bookstore ever known to man, a store that will be spoken of in liturgical texts and literary legend alike, known to its followers as The Avenueflower. Ok, I might have made that up. But it will be awesome. Be sure to head on down to hang out with your old Sunflower friends and, if you didn't get the chance on Saturday, meet the folks who will soon be your new best book buddies at The Avenue Elsternwick.

CORRECTION: So apparently it is technically now trading as The Avenue Bookstore Elsternwick. I still intend of referring to it as the The Avenueflower until the new fitout is complete.

The Sunflower Sets

In a couple of days Sunflower Bookshop, one of my favourite places to hang out, will be closing its doors for the last time. To me, Sunflower has always felt like a cultural and literary home. It represented everything that's great about independent book selling - thoughtful buying, dependable recommendations, a welcoming ambience and, most of all, truly wonderful staff. In the confines of a relatively small space, Zev and Margaret managed to create a massive local hub of literary life. Authors and readers alike could often be found wandering around, perusing the shelves, talking with one another like old friends. I couldn't begin to count the hours I spent there just chewing the fat with whoever was willing to put up with my diatribes. Best of all, the staff really cared about the customers. They got to know their tastes, listened to concerns, were happy to take recommendations as well as give them. When I won The Age competition they proudly stuck the story up on the wall, directly opposite their shrine of Elliot Perlman clippings. A year on, it's still there.

Thankfully all is not lost. For those not yet in the know, the space has been bought by one of my other favourite lit-hubs, The Avenue Bookstore and will be reopening under that moniker in just over a month. As sad as I am to lose Sunflower, I am relieved that it has been acquired by the only shop that can do the area justice. If you are not already an Avenue devotee, I urge you to give them your full support when they open their doors in Glenhuntly Road. There's a reason they consistently win the Best Independent Bookstore at the Australian Booksellers Association Awards. From what I understand, Chris and his fantastic team will be bringing The Avenue vibe to Elsternwick but maintaining the Jewish connection of Sunflower. To my mind, it's win win.

I am told that Sunflower will stay open on Saturday with a mix of current staff and some new faces from The Avenue, so if you haven't had your chance to say goodbye and would also like the opportunity to meet Chris I recommend you get down there. I'm sure you will realise straight away that your reading future is in very safe hands.

And so it is with the odd combination of a heavy heart and great excitement that I say farewell to one of the greatest independent bookstores ever to grace our fine city. Thanks to all those, past and present - Zev, Margaret, Faye, Steven (apparently my mortal enemy), Dierdre, Vivienne, Elissa, Maya, Michelle and all the other wonderful people - who have graced its carpeted (and, after the flood, wooden) floors. I am indebted to you for more than I can express here and wish you only amazing things in your futures. At last you can read for pleasure. Enjoy!

Finally, A Worthy Winner!

Whenever I mount the blogospherical soapbox to kvetch about literary prizes, I can't help but let my more cynical side shine through. However, one prize was just handed out to a very deserving recipient and it would be remiss of me to let it pass without some sort of fanfare. Well done to The Avenue Bookstore in Albert Park, my home away from home, which was just named the Australian Book Industry Awards' Victorian Bookseller of the Year. It really is Melbourne's best; I always find something new and interesting on its shelves, the staff are true book lovers (and lovely people to boot), and it has a wonderful community vibe. Why are you still even reading this? Get off you stupid computer now and head to The Avenue before it wins the national title and fills up with Borders refugees.

Notes From Your Local Bookstore's Funeral

Aussie politicians say the darndest things. For thirty-five odd years I have merrily chuckled along, sometimes with them (thank you Paul Keating and Jeff Kennett), sometimes at them (take a bow Tony Abbott). So how's this for a gag? "In five years, other than a few specialist booksellers in capital cities, we will not see a bookstore, they will cease to exist." So declared Nick Sherry, Federal Minister for Small Business (which, last time I checked, included bookstores), in a speech he gave at some event of little importance (read: free lunch) a couple of days ago. Granted he was sucking up to his audience - online retailers - and he has probably never walked into a bookstore other than Borders or Club X (hey, he spends time in Canberra, it's de rigueur), but surely he must have been taking the piss!

Okay, so the book world is in a state of flux. And yes, lots of people - myself included - are buying books online. I might even agree that there is a grim future for the book-barn type of store, as evidenced by the recent collapse of a certain book-as-commodity giant. But the suggestion that the small and medium sized indie stores might go under, especially within five years, is just absurd. I have garbled on before about the future of "real" books (as opposed to e-books), and I imagine the same goes for the shops that sell them. The digital/online threat only applies to certain sectors of the industry, generally those that can just as easily be peddled in supermarkets as bookstores. But even that doesn't mean we can expect Tapas bars (or whatever the next fungal fad might be) in the places of our beloved book haunts. Many real bookstores already have the ability to sell e-books and, in the next five years, I expect more will sign on. Evolution is inevitable, but it sure ain't going to lead to extinction. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As for the great Amazon conundrum (especially when the Aussie dollar is totally killing it), Sherry's prediction assumes that buying books is an either/or proposition when it simply is not. I buy online and I buy in store. I imagine there are many more book lovers just like me. No online experience can possibly match the pure comfort and joy of browsing in a bookstore, or chatting with knowledgeable staff about what you or they have been reading. Serious readers develop meaningful, nerdtastic relationships with booksellers. Amazon often 'suggests' books I might like to read, but they don't know me and, no matter how complex their predictive algorithms, they don't really have a way of understanding what I might feel like buying on a particular day. A good book store is more than a commercial enterprise; it is a gathering place, a hub, a home away from home for the literary minded. That's the thing Nick Sherry fails to understand. In five years' time I expect to still be standing in any one of my favourite local indie stores. What I can't guarantee is that I'll remember the name Nick Sherry.

Readers Without Borders

Call me petty, but it warmed my heart a little to see the collapse of Borders in the UK. I break out in hives whenever I am forced to think about the crushing power of the book-as-mass commodity mindset championed by these monster barns. Not that Borders is the only guilty party. I vomited a little in my mouth recently when I heard some people discussing the amazing book bargains at Costco, the first festering store of which has just landed in Melbourne. Pity the poor independent bookstore that is forced to compete against a few-opoly of small minds that conspire to bring down the perceived value of the printed word to a level that cannot possibly be sustainable for publishers, let alone indie booksellers.

Rumours have long abounded that the Australian arm of Borders was to suffer a similar fate. I think it was two years ago that I first heard that the Jam Factory store was to close by Christmas. Unfortunately, David Fenlon, CEO of Redgroup, owners of the Aussie Borders franchise, assures us that the pulp megastore is not only alive and well, but getting set to float. Redgroup hits the ASX ticker tape charade sometime next year if reports are to be believed. It's a nice way out of an economic pickle, so long as anyone cares enough to bite. Personally, I see it as a missed opportunity for killing two birds with one stone. Redgroup also owns Angus & Robertson, whose green backlit signs help dull down countless suburban shopping malls.

Snobbery aside, I am all for encouraging as many people to read as possible. I recognise that there is a place for Dan Brown, Danielle Steel and J. K. Rowling (ok the first 3 books were pretty good, but thereafter where was an editor???). I just worry about the future of independent bookstores and local publishers. We might have had success with the defeat of the parallel book importing laws, but I can't help but feel it was just a case of buying time. Between the e-reader and the cannibalisation of the smaller stores by totalitarian regime styled, homogenising super companies (read HMV who ate Waterstones who ate Hatchards, one of the finest London bookstores), the future looks grim.

I hold out small hope that the failure of Borders was the first domino. When the bottom line is the bottom line, bookselling cannot be a viable long-term investment. Perhaps when the giants do fall, people will be encouraged to go to their local little bookstore where they might pay a bit more but will rub shoulders with customers and staff who love and actually know about books, while supporting a small but crucial pillar on which our culture stands.