Marsden Books: Karori’s enduring independent bookshop

Marsden Books has been at the heart of the Karori community for nearly thirty years. Remarkably, there have only been three owners: Anna Hunt bought from Patricia Morrison who took over from original owner Trevor Rose.

Like any good neighborhood bookshop, Marsden Books reflects its community: young professional families, many of the academic staff of Victoria University and well read retirees.

Anna Hunt jokes that the bookstore ‘doesn’t have a male customer between the ages of 20 and 50’ but what it does have is a loyal clientele who prefer to do their book purchasing from Marsden Books.

Anna Hunt had returned to nursing part time after raising her family of four when she was offered part time work at Marsden Books. She juggled both happily, but when the opportunity came to buy the store, a decision had to be made and bookselling won.

That was 2002. In the eight years since, Hunt has doubled the stock levels, revamped areas and included seating while leaving the fundamental layout of the store unchanged. About a third of the floor area is dedicated to children’s books. The most pressing needs were technical ones – out with the microfiche, in with BookData and financial systems run by computer. Security was installed after a backroom burglary while Hunt was dealing with customers in store.

Marsden Books is 113 sq m, a good size for a suburban area. Hunt says her main trading areas are children’s books and nonfiction, with New Zealand titles important. She says customers are comfortable choosing their own nonfiction, but they like help with selecting fiction.

[Heather Frazer and Anna Hunt behind the counter]

Luckily Hunt is a fiction reader, with her preferred authors including Ian McEwan, Nicholas Shakespeare, Justin Cartwright, Margaret Forster and Adam Thorpe. She usually has three books on her bedside table – currently these are Inheritance by Nicholas Shakespeare, The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore and Bill Bryson’s Home which she is finding unexpectedly enjoyable.

What is the most rewarding part of owning a bookshop? “It is just the everyday contact with customers. We put together a “Winter Warming” basket of goodies and everyone who spent $50 or more went into the draw. The winner came in today and picked up the basket. She was just thrilled as she’d never won anything before. That makes our day.

“Another customer came in with her new baby to show us and she had her son, who is home from boarding school, with her. It was great to see him as he used to be in all the time before he went away to school this year. It is lovely to watch families grow up.

“We also keep an eye on our elderly customers to make sure they are staying okay.”

Marsden Books has a Post Shop agency as part of its community focus. “It is a drawcard, but it returns practically no money for the amount of work involved,” says Hunt. Store hours are 8.30 – 5.30 weekdays, 9 00- 3 00 on Saturday and closed on Sunday. A small selection of classical, jazz and crossover CDs are stocked, plus provide the store’s ambient sound tracks. Choral works are to the fore on occasion – Hunt sings with Wellington’s Bach Choir and plays the works for upcoming concerts to get familiar with the music!

For the first time since she bought the store, Hunt left Marsden Books for more than a week, daringly taking three weeks for an overseas trip with her husband. They visited their daughter working as a lawyer in Beijing and a son who is an airplane pilot flying north of Perth. She was impressed by a trendy English language bookshop called Bookworm in Beijing, buzzing with people meeting over books at 9pm. “It made me understand what I want to do here, how important it is to have a place where customers can spend time, meet friends and just relax – but I don’t intend to sell coffee.

“Books do bring people together. One of my customers has just started an all male bookgroup. Sounds brilliant!”

One challenge that lies ahead for the bookstore is the vexed question of a website. Hunt wants Marsden Books to have one, but she’s puzzling over questions of how large it should be and how it can be efficiently maintained without major inputs of time.

Winter doldrums have not affected morale. “We anticipated a down turn last year and then trading was better than expected. I don’t fret, business generally evens out over the year.”

The lease has just been renewed for Marsden Books so Anna Hunt is happily looking forward to the next decade or more in the book business.