Every thriving reading community needs good bookshops, and good booksellers. In this new series, we introduce you to some of Australia’s most loved booksellers, starting with our own local community of Adelaide. If you’d like to nominate a bookshop or bookseller to be featured, please let us know in comments, or email maddy@wakefieldpress.com.au.
First up, meet an Adelaide bookselling icon: Graham, the reigning book detective behind the Dymocks Adelaide special orders counter. Read on to find out what he’s reading, and what makes his bookshop different from others.
Images and words courtesy of Graham and Dymocks Adelaide
How long have you been a bookseller?
Eight years, since I arrived in Australia from Scotland. I walked into Mandy Macky’s Dymocks and knew I wanted to work there. It took three months of badgering for shifts, then I got my lucky break when a team member fractured her leg (she’s fine now).
What do you love about being a bookseller?
I love that my job at the Special Orders desk is to make people happy, or at least to bring them the books they want. And whether it’s the latest bestseller or something obscure and academic, every book we sell has the potential to change a life (or a mind, which is just about the same thing). I love chatting with suppliers and working out how to get hold of exactly what the customer in front of me needs. And I love the thought that, in some little way, Adelaide might be a better place for having our bookshop in it!
What was the last book you read and loved?
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. It’s about people who definitely aren’t getting where they want to go – and all the main characters want the best for one another, but they clash in their ideas of how to achieve this. As with A Gentleman in Moscow, this is full of beautifully constructed sentences you want to share with strangers. Reminds me of P G Wodehouse, and there’s no higher praise.
What’s special or distinctive about your shop?
The team, the customers, the suppliers, the books! Every bookshop has its own magic, but the components are the same: the readers and the books.