Price’s Bookshop – bringing poets and authors to Taupo

At the time on this Thursday afternoon, July 29, when the send button is pressed to dispatch The Read, National Poetry Day will be being celebrated in Taupo with coffee, cake and a poetry reading by Chris Price – at Price’s Bookshop.

It is an initiative by Price’s Bookshop’s owners of two years, Tracey Lidington and Anthony Byett. As Taupo’s proudly independent book store, they like to take on events that link them to the community. Their first Poetry Day event was an evening with Apirana Taylor in 2009, such a success that a follow on event this year was a must. While ‘Chris Price at Price’s Bookshop’ has a ring to it, as far as Lidington knows, the poet is no relation to the store’s name-giving owners.

Co-owner, Tracey Lidington & assistant, Alex Landl

Lidington and Byett took over the store from Lyn and Ian Wright, owners for nine years. It was one of the time honoured techniques of buying a bookshop: as a good customer, Lidington said she would be interested if the business was ever for sale. A few months later, and the former early childhood teacher Tracey and her economist partner Anthony became the proud owners.

While the bookstore has spacious premises and a main street setting in Tongariro Street, it had lagged behind the times. The upgrade started with a computer system running Circle software, and an effective inventory carrying and sales capable website. Coming up, a customer database and newsletter facilities.

“Interiors-wise it is a bit of a hotchpotch, and the carpet is worn,” says Tracey. “But it is warm!” – a heatpump has recently been installed. Renovations will continue as funds become available.

As you enter the store, the centre display is new fiction, New Zealand non-fiction is shelved and displayed on the right, and the counter is at the left. One area Tracey’s got spick and span and well-stocked is children’s books, from picture flats through to teen fiction. That is to be expected given her background, plus part time assistant Alex Landl is a former college librarian.

Pictorial books are usually a big seller in this tourist oriented town, but that has dropped off with economic setbacks; fishing and hunting books are another important area for the store. A current non-fiction bestseller for Price’s Bookshop is Life on Gorge River, and since its New Zealand Post Book Award nomination, Al Brown’s Go Fish has a new lease of life. Cookbooks are as popular in Taupo as elsewhere.

Tracey’s a fiction reader and she is currently handselling Charity Norman’s Freeing Grace, having read a proof copy courtesy of Allen & Unwin rep Ross Lorimer. Norman is coming over from Napier for a Price’s Bookshop event on August 12. Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand that First Held Mine and The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell are other titles popular at the moment. “You can sell what you read,” she says. “I just wish the three of us involved in the shop could all read faster!”

The winter chill hits business in Taupo; Price’s Bookshop is dependent on the population increasing to 60,000 over the Christmas and summer holidays. For them, a good December and January are perhaps even more important than for other Kiwi bookstores.

As their premises are large, Tracey and Anthony are looking at the possibility of incorporating a coffee shop when they come to redecorating. After all, they’ve got the heat pump now providing a warm welcome.

Price’s do have a poetry collection, mostly of recent work by New Zealand poets. It is a service rather than a seller for the store, but a necessary part of a well-rounded bookshop, Tracey believes, noting that most of the customers for poetry are people who stop on their travels. But being involved in celebrating New Zealand literature and promoting the full spectrum of Kiwi books is important to Price’s and their community involvement. When Chris Price is finished reading from The Blind Singer and perhaps earlier poems, other community events the bookshop has been involved with organising for her visit are a National Poetry Day morning at the local library and a brief gig at the Post Office to tie in with the New Zealand Post Book Awards.

Good to know that Price’s will almost certainly run another Taupoetry Day in 2011 and beyond…