Alex

Welcome to Paper Defiance, a fortnightly podcast all about indie bookshops and their owners. My name is Alex, and I am recording this on Wadawaurang land, in Ballarat Australia. It’s exciting to have you join me. 

For this regularly scheduled episode we’re back in regional Victoria, Australia, in a delightful little town called Kyneton. I’m talking to Clare from Aesop’s Attic, and we have a wonderfully wide-ranging discussion – mostly about her shop and what’s in it, but also about the importance of reading, and the role of a bookshop like hers in a town like Kyneton. 

In case you missed it, the last episode was actually a departure from the norm because it was an interview author and bookshop-lover Garth Nix, who although he has imagined owning a bookshop hasn’t actually made that fantasy real. I think it’s a really fun conversation, so why not go check it out? And don’t forget that at the end of the interview, you’ll hear a vignette from someone talking about their favourite bookshop.

Clare
Hi Alex. My name is Clare McKenna, and I’ve been a bookseller for 20 years. But a book lover, I’d say pretty well all my life. But I did struggle to learn to read. I had a lot of childhood illness, missed a lot of school, and really didn’t become a confident book reader until midway through high school. So that made education difficult. I completed year 12 and undertook English Literature and English Expression. And it was a phenomenal year. I swapped schools and went from a convent school to what became La Trobe Uni, Bendigo. And that year was just phenomenal. And I think it cemented my love of reading. And I had such wonderful lecturers. It just gave me that inspiration to continue to read. And it’s gone on from then.

Alex
And has – was that development of a love of books and a love of reading – is that what has led you into the book selling trade?

Clare
Partly. Aesop’s Attic existed for 10 years before we purchased it, and my husband was looking at something else. He had been nursing for a long time, and had done a lot of study and was really quite tired. But he’s also a massage – or was, just only recently retired – a massage therapist, and we were looking for a consulting room. And we approached the then owners of Aesop’s Attic – we knew they had a space – and they informed us that they wanted to sell the whole business. So I decided I’d retire from nursing as well. And so we purchased the business. So Daniel continued on with his massage, and I bought the bookshop, and we went from there. And we relocated from that – which was a rental space – to this new space in 2014. And it was a mammoth task. We have 10,000 new books, and approximately 40,000 secondhand books on display; that doesn’t count all the books that we have in storage. So it was a mammoth task. And I was so fortunate – I have five sons. And they and one of my now daughter in laws also helped with that massive task. We, well, I packed a lot of the books in advance. We closed at lunchtime on the Saturday afternoon, and reopened with the front part of the shop, completely restocked, at 9am on the Monday morning. That was huge. And I was so grateful because it made the transition really smooth. And there’s nothing worse than any business but especially a small business in a country town being closed for too long. People think that you’re closed. So only being closed for half of Saturday, all of Sunday and back up and running on the Monday was phenomenal.

Alex
That’s truly incredible. So we’re sitting in the back part of your shop surrounded by secondhand books, which is honestly one of my favorite place to sit. In terms of the shop itself. It was called Aesop’s Attic before you took it over?

Clare
It was.

Alex
And you were happy with the name?

Clare
Oh yes – perfect.

Alex
What is it about the name that you liked?

Clare
Well, I suppose the Aesop’s Fables. The ‘attic’ came from – it originally being in an attic room. It did make access very difficult. And the original owners did, as soon as they could, get a ground level shop. I know when I returned to Kyneton at the end of 1991 – and Aesop’s Attic opened in 1992 – I then had a new baby and a toddler. I couldn’t get up to the attic room. So we couldn’t get access there. But as soon as it became a ground floor, of course we were there. And because I have five children and I homeschool the three older boys for 10 years, access to books and reading and resources has always been really important. We lived fairly remotely when I was educating the boys at home and it was – computers were only beginning, because it was quite early on – 1983, we started with homeschooling. And we didn’t even have a television at the time. And the correspondence school lent us a television that we could run from the generator. And so the boys would occasionally get video lessons. But it was primarily units of paperwork, which they completed and we posted off at the end of every week or fortnight. But books have always been a phenomenal resource and I read every night. My children vary in their interests. I think one of the really wonderful things about books, and knowing how I struggled is to help children to learn to read [tearful] – sorry…

Alex
I’m a teacher, so it’s a spectacularly important aspect.

Clare
And, you know, when I’ve had parents come back and say, Oh, he’s progressing, or she is progressing, so well, and thank me, and I think it’s just so wonderful. We often, with our second hand, particularly the children’s books – because occasionally people do gift us books. And so I do gift books on. And we do make a lot of donations. We were involved with a local charity, who was sending books to East Timor, but the amount of work that they had to do just in raising enough money for the freight, it became impossible. And then of course with COVID. And really a lot of the books we were able to send were not suitable because English is perhaps the fourth, or perhaps fifth, language for East Timor. However, we do donate a lot of books, we have had several special requests from the women’s prison at Maldon; a couple of people who work there or who have connections there have put in requests and leading up to last Christmas, we donated thousands of books – the whole front of the shop, every space up there was full of boxes of books. They requested art and craft books, gardening, food, and fiction, poetry. And so whatever their requests were, we filled that – music books as well – to the best of our ability. I’m a small shop, so I couldn’t donate new books, because it’s just not possible. But we do also donate to local schools and kinders, the Youth Justice Centre at Malmesbury, when they make requests for donations. So we share what we’re gifted, and just having the capacity to share books… I’m a baby boomer, and we didn’t have many books, you know, you might get a book for your birthday or Christmas. But we weren’t – books weren’t purchased readily for us. And we did have access to the Bendigo library. But it wasn’t close, we would have to have a 20 minute or more trip into Bendigo. And I was terrified of the children’s librarian. And so I would go with my older siblings, but I was too frightened to borrow, because I could read well enough to read the rules. And of course, there were rules about washing your hands, which was not a problem. But if you damage the book, you know, the fine, you could receive – and I was so terrified that I might – so I didn’t borrow. But I used to enjoy, you know, with my older siblings, doing that. And much later, as an adult in my 20s my father became quite unwell and later died from cancer, but he could no longer walk up the steps to the then adult library. And so he used to send me a wish list. And I would take my toddler with me and we would go around the adult library section of the Bendigo library and select books for him. I love history. I don’t read a lot of fiction, I have to admit. But if something has a really strongly researched historic influence I’m happy to read it. And for the first few years that I’ve had the shop I would read every award winning … and then I found that it was very time consuming, obviously, and I don’t have a lot of time because I run the shop seven days a week myself. And I wasn’t necessarily enjoying them all. So I thought, I’ll leave it up to the experts. And I’ll just read what I know I’ll enjoy. And also, I listen to what the customers say, you know, they’ll often recommend a book. And sometimes I’m a little hesitant. But other times I think, Oh, well, I’ll give it a shot – and I really enjoy it. Anything that encourages someone to read… in the 20 years that I’ve had the shop, the only area that I could say that I’ve noticed a decline is when children get to say Year Eight. Preschool, grades – prep to grade six, and then year seven, they’re still really enthusiastic, wanting something new, something exciting. But it really has – in those 20 years, it has petered off. And I think it’s a great loss. And I do get to talk to a lot of English teachers at secondary level and also university lecturers. And they often say they can tell when someone is a passionate reader, or even just casually reads, because there is an obvious issue now with writing more than just a couple of sentences, to actually – and also to analyse passages of either factual or fiction. The skills are being lost. And I know a lot of work is being done by teachers to try and get older students to read. And look, anything that will do that. Even if it’s a sort of a fad read, ut’s better than not reading at all.

Alex
I remember, was it several years – many, many years ago now – was the International Year of books or reading or something like that and the slogan was ‘as long as they’re reading’. So one of the things I really like about Aesop’s Attic is the fact that it’s got the new and the used sections. Is that something that you took over the shop?

Clare
No, Aesop’s Attic was only new books. And one of the things that I found was I was really concerned about wastage in publishing. And initially, there was this really big push – and of course, the publishers want you to buy as many books as possible – but I tracked down the details behind what happened if a bookshop returned a book they hadn’t sold. And I found that the majority of them were pulped. And I just decided I didn’t want to be part of that. So I tend to order in only a couple of copies. And if the book is successful, and I can reorder, I do; if I’ve missed the boat, it’s too bad. I don’t want to be part of wasting resources. The reason we got in – well, I used to pursue second hand books for customers. And that was on a very small scale. Then we had some older friends who had an existing secondhand bookshop in Castlemaine. And they wanted to completely retire. And they offered us their collection and all of the shelving. And that was fine. Initially, I said, Look, I’m sorry, I can’t afford it. I mean, I didn’t even know what they wanted. But I just knew I didn’t have that kind of financial capacity. And they said, Well, look, we’ll allow you to pay it off in monthly installments. And I said, Okay, I could manage that. And at that stage, they were allowing us just to pack sections, and bring them backwards and forwards because I was still running the shop seven days a week. And then they had a complete change in their circumstances, and their daughter had to come back from overseas with her children. And they needed what they were using, which was a beautiful barn, they needed that as a commendation for her and the children. So we had something like 10 days to completely move this entire collection. There are some days where I really just can’t remember – because during the day I would be unpacking boxes. And then at night my husband would come in and we would head to Castlemaine. And we would pack the boxes, load them up, and then bring – and of course, not only were we moving the books, but we had to move all the shelving. And I could remember getting back at about 1am to the back of the old shop that we were renting. And I looked up at one of the bookcases that was on top of the stack of books. And I thought there’s no way the two of us can get that off. And my husband has a very mechanical and engineering type brain. And I said, I’ll just let you work out how you would like me to help you, because I don’t want either of us to get injured, and I’m confident you’ll work out a way. And he did. And we got it inside. And we got all the books unpacked safely. But you know, there’s a lot of behind the scene work. I think a lot of people think you just stand behind the counter and go ‘kah-chink’. But there’s a lot of research, you have to keep up to date. During COVID, we had to completely swap – after 18 years – our point of sale, so that we could actually have a website. And so that necessitated the 10,000 new books being – I mean, I understood when we were agreeing to it that it was going to be a seamless transfer of the data. However, the seamless transfer of the data actually involved yes, a certain amount of uploading of files. But it wasn’t seamless. And I’m so grateful to Francis, my younger son who was actually living here in the space at the back of the shop, because it’s an enormous old house – and he spent endless hours transferring the data that hadn’t transferred over. And the other thing I had – because I didn’t grow up with technology. In fact, the house I grew up in didn’t even have a phone. The thought of moving to a whole new point of sale system really did frighten me. And I know, for a lot of people, it’s nothing, you’re just – new program, nothing. But anyway, I’ve conquered it, I think most of the time. And it’s a relief. I just, for example, I had an email this morning, when I got into work, a request for copies of certain books, and I had to get a price, availability, they need them urgently. You know, I was doing that before nine o’clock this morning. And you’re always wanting to see what’s coming out, what’s winning awards. Even just a few years ago, the Children’s Book Awards were enormous. The schools would purchase, usually, a selection, almost all of the shortlisted depending on the suitability for their students. A few years ago, and I’m not 100% sure how long ago it was, there was a really controversial picture book that won the Picture Book Award. Now, in year 10, in some of the local secondary colleges, they do study a picture book, and this book would have been completely suitable for that. But a lot of people were really quite distressed – it did have, it had a very, well, it was an Indigenous book, and there was a lot in it. And I’ve found since then, a lot of schools are more reluctant to stock a lot of the books from the short list. You know, I do still get really excited about books, whether it’s someone really little getting their first books, or an older person who you know, who still gets excitement from a book in their 90s. We do also sell audio books. And I do whatever I can to get in a special order for someone – often not making very much money on it because I have to source it from perhaps overseas or somewhere that’s really not within the normal scope of publishing. But anyway, you become more innovative. I think you have to; being an independent bookshop you don’t have a lot of backup. Also margins for small independent book shops – and when books are released, new releases, we’re usually last on the list. But we do our best.

Alex
So you’ve talked a lot about the things that have brought you joy and excitement. Over the last 20 years have there been things that have particularly surprised you about running the bookshop?

Clare
I suppose some of the people I’ve met, the stories I hear – I often have little exercise books and biros, and if someone tells me a really interesting story, I’ll hand them an exercise book and biro and say, please write it down. And they’ll say, oh, but it’s not worthy; and I’ll say, But it is, even if it’s only for your immediate family, or even just for them, to record it for their own joy. And the other thing is, too, I think, sometimes the expectation that you can always get exactly what someone wants yesterday. And it’s been more problematic, obviously, since COVID. And I can see this year for Christmas, it could also be a problem. For example, a couple of weeks ago, one of my couriers, who delivers most of my major publishing house books, was sick for a couple of days, well actually probably nearly a week, but the courier company had no one to replace him with. So I had no deliveries. And of course, then when they did come, I had – which is fine. I don’t mind if I come in early, stay late, I can do that – but it meant people were waiting longer. And some people fully understand. But other people, you know they can become impatient, and there’s nothing I can do. The other thing that we do is participate in events – like we’ve just had our wonderful daffodil festival. And so you know, I decorated the window, we were lucky enough to have access to one of the wheelbarrows of daffodils. When there’s events on we try to participate as much as we can. We also can be a drop off point for people who live out of town. One of the most unusual things I’ve been the custodian of for a short period of time were two organic toilets. Because freight, if they have to have it delivered out of town – but they were enormous. That was the problem – so I had to, and they were too big for me to lift. Sometimes people will have special food – dietary, I often have big polystyrene fridge-type boxes dropped off. We used to, when we were in the previous shop, we were next door to the optometrist. And because we’re open seven days a week, often we would have people’s glasses, and they would come – like prearranged, paid. And they would come and pick them up at any time of the day or night.

Alex
The importance of the community bookshop not be underestimated.

Clare
And also ameeting place because in summer, it’s cool in here. And in winter it’s warm. One day I had someone locally, and I knew her vaguely but not you know that well. And I thought, something’s happened. And we got talking. And she said I’ve just been sacked. And I said, I’m so sorry. And I said, Could I make you a cup of tea? And at that stage, it was summer. And I’ve got a table and chairs outside. So I sat her out there. And I managed to scrounge some biscuits and a cup of tea. And I mean, she was really quite distressed. And unfortunately, I have had some experience with people with mental illness and I was quite concerned. And I know we have a really good community mental health team here. And I thought, perhaps I might need to call them. But after perhaps an hour, an hour and a half of her sitting out there – I went out a couple of times to check – and she came in and told me all about it. And she’d obviously worked through some of it. I’ve also, on weekends I had the situation where someone came in late on a Sunday afternoon, and I could see they were distressed and they said, I need a book that’s going to help me to talk to my children. Their grandmother has just been murdered by her partner. And I thought, I don’t have I don’t have anything that I could do or say and so I just listened to her for a little while. And I did have a book on grief and loss of a parent. And I thought, well, perhaps if she can read through this for herself, that might help her. I mean, it was such a small gesture. But… another time, I had someone who said they needed a book on paranoid schizophrenia. And I chatted to them for a while, and I said, Look, really, a book won’t help. And I know, the phone numbers for the local mental health team and the local community health team as well. So I just wrote them on a card and I said, Look, I really would suggest that you get some professional help. Now, I don’t know how that worked out. But when you live in a country town, you can – also you’re a source of information. And if you don’t know you can find someone who can help that person; try and help as much as we can.

Alex
You’re an incredible resource. I think that’s really fantastic. Clare, I’ve got two last questions. The first is you said you’re reading all the time. What are you reading at the moment?

Clare
I’m reading a book called Marvelous Melbourne, which is a history book. And it’s concentrating on the post Gold Rush era, to about 1900. And it’s just full of interesting facts. And the other one I’m reading is Victorian London, and it came in secondhand.

Alex
Fantastic. My last question is just about your shop in general, are there things that you would like listeners to know about Aesop’s Attic?

Clare
We’re open every day. And if I don’t have the book they’re after, I’ll pursue it. And just that we have such a huge variety of books. And I hope I’m always helpful for people and do my absolute best to pass on my passion for reading and share it with as much of the community as I can. So drop in, say hello. I’m here most of – well, pretty well every day.

Karlee

My name is Karlee. I’m a teacher and museum educator living on Ngunnawal country in Canberra. My favourite bookshop is The Little Bookroom. It’s a family owned bookshop in Melbourne’s inner north, in North Fitzroy and it’s primarily a children’s bookshop, I guess, hence the name The Little Bookroom. But this bookshop does that wonderful thing of celebrating children and fun in reading, and it’s such an inclusive and loving place to be. They always have a really great selection of books for adults too. Because I guess readers raise readers. So there’s always something so lovely about making sure that the parents and the gift buyers are also well taken care of. I have two memories I’d like to share from the many many hours I’ve spent in The Little Bookroom. One is taking my then two year old daughter to get her copy of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls signed by Francesca Cavallo. The queue was out the door and members of the family who own this bookshop were walking along the queue checking everyone was okay and not too hot. The bigger girls around my daughter played with her with a toy frog that they had brought along. And when we got to our turn with Francesca, my tiny kid, after all that waiting quietly, told me, I’ll have a photo but I’m not smiling. And I thought this was kind of reflective of a kid who’s been raised with the kind of empowering, diverse picture storybooks sold in that shop. To be standing grump-faced, next to an author who absolutely accepted her boundaries in a bookshop that had orchestrated this patient, caring room full of young girls, and this gorgeous book-loving family just hovering over it all. The second memory is a day when I wandered in to buy a present for a new baby and ended up weeping over an Alison Lester book with one of the owners. He just sparkles when he recommends books. And as he handed the book to me, he said, It’s the new Alison Lester. And I’ll warn ya, it’ll get ya; she’s just extraordinary. So that’s The Little Bookroom. It’s very special, and I love it.

Thanks for listening to this sixth episode. You can find paper defiance on Twitter as paperdefiancepod. On Instagram, as paperdefiance. And on Facebook, it is Paper Defiance Podcast. 

This podcast is created and produced by me, Alexandra Pierce. The music is called Loopster, by Kevin MacLeod; you can find the attribution at paperdefiance.com.

Music: “Loopster” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

• transcript