Celebrating all books Kiwi at Christchurch’s Arts Centre Bookshop

Darryl Wells bought the Arts Centre Bookshop and its www.booknz.com mail order site three and a half years ago and has successfully moved the store’s focus to New Zealand books. His stock is now 85 percent books about, on, or by Kiwis and our country… and his tourist clientele are hugely appreciative.

As a result of this idiosyncratic specialisation, three of their four top-selling titles are quite possibly unique to the Arts Centre Bookshop. Who else would name Nursery Rhymes Your Mother Never Read You by Garrick Tremain as their past and current bestseller, Wine Dogs: New Zealand (McGill, Elliott, Judd) at number three, and little-known self-published English writer Tracey Elliot-Reep in the number four slot with Riding by Faith Through New Zealand? Their second best seller may be more familiar, A Kiwi Night Before Christmas from Scholastic (though Wells laments the title is currently out of stock at this very time of the year!) Not surprising that another children’s title that turns over constantly is Shrek: The Hermit Sheep of Tarras.

The Arts Centre Bookshop is also a library and tertiary education supplier and, combined with their online business, these activities are around a quarter of the store’s business. The balance is their tourist trade, with visitors marveling at the scope of the New Zealand books, the difference and the huge variety available.

The store’s setting is the Arts Centre precinct in the historic old buildings of the original Canterbury University, now an attractive retail centre. The space is relatively small, around 70 square metres, including stockroom and offices. It is a 9.30am to 5pm seven days a week business, run with the assistance of staff member Frances Koorey.

So what does the 15 percent of stock that’s not Kiwi include? Some international fiction, travel, and children’s literature, says Wells. Trade was quiet until late November, “But we’ve gone quite well since then,” he says.

Bookstore owners in New Zealand come from a diverse range of occupations, but Darryl Wells may be the first with a service station industry background – making his way up the ranks from forecourt to manager. But naturally he’s had a lifetime interest in books and was school librarian at college.

Nineteen years in service stations enabled him to first buy a house and then the Arts Centre Bookshop. “The basic details are the same,” he says of the two industries. “You buy the product from reps, and the back office functions are identical for the different businesses. But you do need a knowledge of books.” And in Wells’ case, add to that his passion for New Zealand ones. The website proudly states: “Our goal is to have the largest database of titles from kiwi authors, photographers and artists as they gain larger prominence on the world stage”.

There’s no doubt that the Arts Centre Bookshop’s major achievement is its commitment to a range and depth of current and backlist New Zealand-published books that is arguably unequalled anywhere else in the country.  It is a shame their current passing trade is so tourist-based – the Arts Centre Bookshop is a rich resource for Kiwis too.