There's no doubt that Canberrans love their books.
Canberra booksellers consistently talk about how people in the ACT are well educated, affluent and interested in everything, particularly literature, history and politics.
One, David Berkelouw, went so far as to call it the best book city in Australia.
Being a bookseller is as much a labour of love as a business.
Like their counterparts elsewhere, Canberra bookshops - the bricks and mortar variety - have done it tough in recent years.
The rise of online bookstores, the Kindle, economic downturns, coronavirus - there have been many challenges, and whether from retirement, ruination or other reasons, many bookstores have not survived.
Clouston & Hall, Borders, Gaslight and Gilbert's are just some of the shops whose final chapters have been written in recent years.
But many are still going and new ones keep coming.
How do Canberra's bookshops survive?
Besides the oft-repeated claim that Canberra is a bookloving and well-educated city, booksellers also maintain that it's the personal touch that helps keep bookstores alive. It's about giving people an experience that online bookstores, however convenient and vast, simply can't emulate - there was no real secret to the demise of Borders in Canberra. But the internet also helped many booksellers survive during the pandemic - they offered online mail orders, click and collect services, home deliveries and streaming events.
There have been other threats.
In May, the longtime franchisees of the Canberra Centre's Dymocks store, Richard and Alison Kay, retired after 18-and-a-half years and two relocations. When US megastore Borders was in town from 2006 to 2011, it caused a 30 per cent drop in the Kay's sales - the shops' close proximity in the Canberra Centre didn't help. Borders had the same owner as venerable Australian chain Angus & Robertson and both went under because of corporate mismanagement, though the latter maintains an online presence with new owner Booktopia.
Richard Kay, an engineer at the time, was having "a midlife crisis" when the opportunity to buy the Dymocks franchise came up, so he and his wife took it.
He says the company provided extensive support in establishing and running the franchise.
Kay says even within Canberra, there are local variations: the city Dymocks store sells a lot of non-fiction while the store in Belconnen sells more children's books. The biggest cost is stock - about $400,000 worth in a store - and, apart from sale tables, all books are sold for the recommended retail price.
"We get no benefit from online Dymocks sales," Kay says.
"Customers don't realise that. We try to encourage customers to let us order the books in-store.
"If book publishers say the recommended retail price is $100, we would be buying for about $55, though the Dymocks group has buying power sometimes and can get better terms."
The city Dymocks store has survived by diversifying its range of stock to include non-book items such as stationery - which make up 20 per cent of sales - and keeping track of what's popular in the local market.
One way to compete with the internet and discount sellers is by providing what Kay calls "full service": book-loving staff are trained consistently through online modules and keep up to date on the thousands of new releases each month so they are able to advise and assist customers.
Diligent staff selection and service are also hallmarks of independent Paperchain Bookshop in Manuka.
Roger Tall has owned Paperchain for more than 20 years, though its history goes back further. Most of its trade - more than 90 per cent - is in-store rather than online
"I'm a bit of a history buff myself," Tall says, and history is one of the larger sections in the shop.
He chooses his staff carefully: most of them are university graduates and all are bibliophiles.
"At one stage I had three PhD candidates working for me."
The first year of COVID was "diabolical" for the business, Tall says, but Paperchain survived; in 2021 a "click and collect" option kept sales going and things are improving.
Another way a bookstore can thrive is by going niche. Bookshops at government-funded national institutions, says the National Library of Australia's program manager of retail, Lynda Carmody, provide a revenue stream while reflecting the contents and themes of their locations, including current exhibitions. The biggest seller in Carmody's time has been the Australian Pocket Constitution from the Parliamentary Education Office: "It's sold thousands," she says. Go figure - but this is Canberra, after all.
Other, non-institutional bookstores have their own specialities.
Jess Rowe has managed the Gungahlin Book Face store since November 2016. It's one of five around Australia.
"A lot of what we do is very community-based," she says.
"We have a bit of a focus on the representation of minorities - neurodiversity, race, LBGTQ+. We have built up stock levels on all these sections to reflect issues that affect our staff."
The shop stocks books across all genres told by marginalised people in their own voices, from picture books to autobiographies.
Rowe has experience in this area - her son and daughter were both diagnosed with autism.
The shop also sells pottery by local artists, part of its community involvement.
Muse, opened by Dan Sanderson and Paul Eldon in 2015, is another multi-faceted operation.
"We're a bookshop, a restaurant and an event space," Sanderson says.
But, he adds, "The bookshop is the reason for it to exist."
The selection of books is small but carefully curated and includes Australian politics - not surprising in Canberra - and modern Australian literature, food and wine.
Muse also stocks fiction and non-fiction titles that feature in its regular author conversations and book club events.
While some bookshops have cafes, Muse has an all-day restaurant - convenient for guests of East Hotel, in which it's located - and caters for functions such as weddings and cocktail parties.
Alexander Fax Booksellers, established by David Fax and Kristen Alexander in Mawson in 2004, specialises in military history books. They make up about 60 per cent of sales, with the internet providing much of this trade. Having ADFA and the Royal Military Duntroon nearby doesn't hurt.
Peter Arnaudo left the public service after 25 years wanting to open his own small business.
"I didn't really like the idea of selling cakes, coffee, a restaurant, things like that. I gravitated more towards books. My family enjoys reading and we have an extensive collection," he says.
He established The Book Cow - "I love books and I love cows" - in Kingston in December 2020. Despite the onset of the pandemic the following year, he's kept things going: like others, he stresses the importance of being a part of the community in which he operates.
There are plenty of literary events there, but he wanted to have a special focus on children's books (Anh Do and Bluey remain popular) - there's a weekly storytelling session - and fiction (crime is a big seller).
Booksellers from outside Canberra have tacitly endorsed the city's book culture by expanding into it. Robinsons Bookshop, which began in Frankston, Victoria, in 1963, now has nine stories in Melbourne and, since 2017, one in the Canberra Centre.
Robinsons' current owner, Susanne Horman, says that in addition to books - with a strong emphasis on biographies, history and other non-fiction ("exactly what the Canberra market loves") - there's also a focus on pop culture including comics and manga.
"There are also a lot of students in Canberra, that's another very strong market," she says.
Another outsider that's established a strong Canberra presence is Harry Hartog, an offshoot of Sydney-based Berkelouw Books. Both are run by the same family, but the latter specialises in second-hand and antiquarian books while the former - named after an ancestor - has more emphasis on new releases. The first Canberra Harry Hartog store opened in Woden in 2014, followed a few years later by a branch at ANU, where it replaced the longtime uni stalwart Co-Op. A third store opened in Tuggeranong in May.
Co-owner David Berkelouw is part of the sixth generation. The family trade began in Holland in 1812 and established itself in Sydney in 1948 when his grandfather emigrated.
Children's literature is a particular focus and academic texts and classics do well at ANU. During the pandemic, the business pivoted from in-store experiences to online offerings including streamed literary events.
Will Berkelouw Books come to Canberra?
"Given the right opportunity, I can't see why not," Berkelouw says, tantalisingly.
Another bookseller who literally grew up in the trade is Canberran Luke Canty, who with his wife Laura owns and operates Canty's Bookshop, one of the few surviving second-hand bookshops in Fyshwick.
In 2007, Canty bought the business from his parents, who had run it since 1992 - and they established the nearby Barry's Bookshop that his mother Trish still operates: she intends to retire by the end of the year.
Canty says his shop, like other second-hand bookstores, not only recycles books but provides entertainment as well as education in an affordable way.
"Education is the key to everything - the more educated people are, the better everything is," he says.
Between the GFC and the rise of reading devices and online shopping and then the pandemic, Canty faced some lean years. Some genres that used to be popular - cookbooks, atlases, dictionaries - have permanently declined, since people can access recipes and maps at the click of a button.
But, says Canty, fiction is still driving the heart of the shop, especially of the crime and science variety.
The ancient Greeks and Romans, meanwhile, sell steadily, particularly to young people wanting to explore classical literature and history.
On the subject of second-hand books, Lifeline Canberra's fundraising book fair has been popular for half a century. The event was the victim of recent protests in Canberra - a fact that made Canberrans more determined than ever to stake their claim on a thriving culture. The cancellation was met with a barrage of donations, more than enough to make up for the financial loss. It will be on again in July, while its new eBay shop and Book Lovers' Lane store in Fyshwick are keeping things ticking along.
