Tea in the Library Page 10

  Our books — those vital items that make a bookshop a bookshop, and a café interesting and different.

  I was often asked “What kind of books will you sell?” I would answer that we would be a general bookshop, covering most genres. If pressed for more detail, I would say that our selection would be “like Abbeys” or “books that I like!” But the question was always difficult to answer satisfactorily. I never actually personally chose a book title for Tea In The Library — all the book ordering was done by The Team. I was a bit envious — it looked liked a great deal of fun.

  General fiction was of course our biggest category. On the reps’ advice, The Team chose new fiction they thought would sell, and we always had the prize short-list titles and past winners (the Booker and the Pulitzer particularly, but also the various Premier’s Awards and other Australian prize winners). We judged that our demographic would expect to see these. We had quite an emphasis on Australian fiction, and tried to carry a broad range of the recent releases. These of course came and went — if they didn’t sell, they were returned and the next tranche of new releases installed. The backlist was a bit more problematic. Because of our limited size, we couldn’t expect to be in any sense comprehensive, so we hit the highlights, I guess. One directive I did give The Team was to make sure we had a selection of beautifully bound classics in our backlist, so we had lovely Everyman’s Library editions in hard cover, with silken bookmarks — Zola, Dickens, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, V. S. Naipaul, Raymond Chandler, Nabokov, Mary Shelley, Plato, John Donne, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde.

  Biography was also a big genre for us, and there was never a short-age of new and interesting titles. We covered Arafat, Queen Noor, Bill Clinton, Sting, Audrey Hepburn, Sylvia Plath, Barry Humphries, Caravaggio, Scott of the Antarctic, Margot Fonteyn, Lord Nelson, Dylan Thomas.

  Then there was the genre we called “cultural studies”, which was a catch-all description for books about current politics, the Middle East, Islam (in terms of current issues), public policy on many issues, and the clash of civilizations! If it was topical, debated and interesting, it fell under this category.

  We carried some history, especially popular history — the latest on Flinders, Captain Cook, Darwin or the Civil War, or the latest salvo in the Australian “History Wars”. We also had some more academic tomes on this subject, specialized books about American history or the Middle East. While we never aspired to be suppliers of academic texts, if it was about a current topic of interest, it would be likely to appeal to us (and our customers).

  I was very proud of our art and architecture section, which was very extensive for our size. I venture to suggest that we may even have outshone Abbeys in this department (though not in so many others, of course). We carried not only many sumptuously produced art books, but our selection also had its own allure — we carried many new releases of unusual and beautiful books in this genre.

  In the area of children’s titles, Emma excelled herself. Although we virtually never saw a small child in our shop, this became our biggest selling department after general fiction. Since we were selling to adults who were buying as presents for children, our selection favoured gorgeous books that would make beautiful gifts. But our children’s section was very varied, and we had the children’s classics, some small cheaper soft covers, and I think every known permutation of Harry Potter.

  Our “mind body spirit” section was one of my favourite browsing areas. As in many shops, the titles under this heading ranged widely, from “New Age” books to aromatherapy, Buddhism, religion of all shades, yoga, personal development, health, popular psychology, everything you might call “health”, sexuality — you name it, this was the place to find it. Here again I made a special request to the book buyers — I asked them to source and include a selection of Buddhist texts from the Kadampa Tradition — “my” Buddhists, as I thought of them, the tradition that ran the mediation classes I attended most weeks. The spiritual leader of this tradition, the Hon-ourable Gelsang Gyatso (or “Geshla”, as his adherents affectionately know him), is the author of many helpful books that we added to our shelves, including Introduction To Buddhism, The Joyful Path Of Good Fortune, Learn To Meditate, and my personal favourite, Transform Your Life. I’ve always thought it’s an excellent idea to transform your life once in a while. It was good to have the Dharma on our shelves, along with some magnificent books of Buddhist art. Great karma, surely.

  Our travel section was also very thorough, being an especial interest of mine. We carried a good selection of those essential travelers’ aids, the Lonely Planet guides, as well as other travel guides, maps, and quite a lot of travel writing. Plus of course our special section on mountaineering and true adventure stories. We had smaller sections on gardening, interior decorating, language, and reference. We covered philosophy, politics, business and computing in small sections, and had a good range of the latest release cookbooks and books about wine. Our poetry section was small but interesting, and we carried some popular science books. I think we did a pretty good job of covering a broad range of general books in our small and cosy shop. The aim was not to be comprehensive, but to be stimulating and attractive, and to ensure that browsing time at Tea In The Library would be rewarded with a great “find”.

  At one stage, my son Evan was working in the shop as a part-time “bookie”. He was unpacking boxes, folding cardboard (the amount of cardboard involved with book deliveries was an eye-opener), and dealing with the tonnes and tonnes of those little squashy beads of unknown substance that are used to pack the books and protect them from damage in transit. (There was a rumour that they were made from some product of the potato, but I never learnt if this was true. Certainly they did kind of dissolve in water. And certainly our carpet, the corners of the office and every nook and cranny of the place became a home for them.) After I complained that we didn’t have enough mountaineering titles, Todd gave Evan the task of sitting at the computer and finding the publishers and sources of the titles I had listed, and then calling up to order. This took a long time, but did improve our selection.

  (Evan worked at the shop off and on throughout its life, but never really took to retail. He didn’t mind receiving and shelving books, but drew the line at taking café orders. When a customer tried to ask for coffee, he would quietly think “My apron says ‘BOOKS!’” He also loathed the marketing task of handing out leaflets on the street, which fell to his lot a few times — in contrast to his mate Lincoln, also a casual worker from time to time. Lincoln could be relied upon to go out on the streets and urge passers-by to try Tea In The Library!)

  In the pursuit of “treasures” we also ordered from some of the overseas University Presses. These were books about world affairs, theses made into books, sociological commentaries, and sometimes beautifully produced photographic essays. This was a more complicated business, because it involved, at that time, buying through an overseas-based rep. We were also only ordering small quantities, and at first we didn’t get the hang of centralizing our payments through the rep, meaning we kept receiving dozens of very small accounts direct from the University Presses, payable in US$. I finally sorted it out by faxing back credit card details, and once we found a local distributor, we did better on this front. However, I was very keen to stock these titles, which were not ones you would usually find on the front display at Dymocks or Angus & Robertson. Abbeys did indeed stock a selection from these presses, which in my view was part of the secret to the allure of their selection.

  When Todd first talked to me about the kind of titles I wanted to stock, my advice to him was to go and have a look at Abbeys’ front displays — both non-fiction and fiction. “Just like Abbeys”, I said, only with much more mountaineering! From this tenuous premise we began buying books.

  I can’t cover the subject of our book selection without mentioning manga — Japanese graphic novels. One of my daughters, Jess, was an avid fan. I had followed her forays into funny little specialist importers looking fo
r manga books in series to which she had become addicted — it was a hard-to-find genre when Jess first became enamoured of it. A little later, Borders hit the scene, and marvelously they carried a wide range of manga. Jess was delighted, and was vocally insistent that Tea In The Library do the same. Our size, infancy, and demographic meant that this was not to be; but we included a few graphic novels in our selection — including Peach-stones, Jess’s own self-published manga. Exclusive to us.

  Publishers sent their “reps” to see us. We gave them coffee — very good coffee. Todd spent hours poring over their catalogues and discussing the titles. Emma took on children’s books. Budgets were set and promptly exceeded. Gradually the boxes of books began arriving. The subject, indeed the art, of “receiving” in a bookshop was revealed to me.

  The core of this process was the inventory software. Each and every title was entered into our computer system, and tracked, from ordering to arrival, to shelving (including where it was placed in the shop) to its hopeful eventual sale. This is a mammoth “back-office” task, especially when setting up a shop from scratch. Not only was it necessary to enter every single title into the computer database, but the data-entry persons (at one point this included everyone involved with the shop, from the booksellers to the chef to my son, and any passing idle friend we could commandeer) needed to make a decision about the correct category. For example, do you put Harry Potter in Latin under “childrens” or “language”? Such esoteric discussions were amusing and interesting, but the data-entry process was excruciatingly slow.

  Back in the kitchen, supplies were also arriving. New suppliers’ accounts were set up, and we stocked up on tea and coffee. The new coffee machine was put through its paces, and experimental batches of scones were baked. Slightly unfortunately, it became apparent at this point that Jo could not “do” scones. However, the experiments continued, and passable scones were produced. Gorgeous jams from South Australia arrived. Jo’s lime mini-muffins with crème fraîche and smoked salmon were to die for. Everyone was having a great deal of fun, the excitement was high. Jo said how wonderful it was to be working in a place with so much enthusiasm, and no-one ever mentioning “Big Brother”.

  Somehow during the metamorphoses from idea to reality, the café had become a bit more formal and up-market than I had originally envisioned. In the early plan, I had seen simple but good quality tea and coffee, with a few light cakes and savoury treats, bought in. We now had a full kitchen, an ambitious menu, and white linen tablecloths and napkins. Jo had found a linen supplier, and marveled at the low laundering costs — a few cents per napkin. She worried that some poor Korean immigrant child was being made to slave over a laundry tub. But we also had excellent service from our laundry supplier, and the linen cloths and napkins were enthusiastically received by the customers.

  The choice of our tea and coffee was very carefully made — I took on this task myself, not trusting such a vital ingredient to anyone else. I received a recommendation of a small family company called Pine Tea & Coffee — Leslie Pine had once worked for Bushells, and for the past ten years had run his own tea and coffee supply company with his wife. They bought the leaf teas from auctions in Sri Lanka and India, and imported the white and green teas from China. They roasted their own coffee beans, and concocted their own blends. I visited their warehouse and was treated to a unique and sumptuous experience – a tea tasting. Forget wine tastings — this was bliss! About one dozen teas were arranged in a semi-circle — both brewed and in dry leaf form. The wet leaves were also ceremonially exhibited before the liquor was gently sipped. There was even a spittoon! The teas were arranged in order — from the black teas through the green and white teas to the fruit mélanges.

  After spending a delightful hour with Leslie and the teas, I selected 19 different varieties for Tea In The Library’s tea menu — with the word “tea” in the business name, you can’t let the customers down! The black tea blends were strong and flavourful — from the premium English Breakfast through a lovely Scottish Breakfast to the soft, autumnal Darjeeling. We offered a wonderful green tea which was wrapped in a tight ball, and unfolded gradually as it steeped in a glass teapot — the jasmine “Buddha balls”. We also had several flavoured teas, some fruit mélanges, and rooi tea — the South African red bush tea, as drunk by Mma Precious Ramwotswe of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Nothing like a literary reference.

  On the question of temperature, the experts were firm. Never make tea using the boiling water from the espresso machine — way too hot. We had two electric urns — 90 degrees for the black teas, and 85 degrees for the white teas and fruit mélanges. It may sound pedantic, but our tea was perfect. If I do say so myself.

  As to coffee, I sought Leslie’s advice. His modus was thus: he enquired the location of the proposed café. As soon as I told him it was across the road from the Queen Victoria Building, he recommended a strong, flavourful Italian-style blend. He assured me that it was just what our customers “in that area” would expect. Events proved him correct — I was always as proud of our coffee as of our wonderful selection of tea. We took tea and coffee seriously at Tea In The Library.

  To prepare for opening, we needed paper bags and more in the way of stationery. I visited the designers again, and we implemented the next phase of their exquisite (and expensive) portfolio. I ordered printed letterhead — cream with a dark green back, our logo and name in the chosen typeface, plus matching envelopes. Even at the time, I knew we didn’t really need printed letterhead, and certainly not of this standard. But I was seduced by it, and bought anyway. We also acquired menu covers, note pads, stickers (large and small) with our Logo, gift tags, two designs in gift wrap, and paper bags.

  Ahh! The paper bags! Naturally, we were to be the kind of shop which eschewed plastic — only lovely heavy brown paper for us. In our case, bags in two sizes, just right for books, printed with “Tea In The Library” in black lettering, plus some unprinted brown paper carry bags. I remain confident that the paper bags were entirely the right choice, and not too expensive (unlike some of our other stationery). However, a slight miscalculation was made when it came to the quantity ordered. Put it down to our supreme optimism about projected sales, but I still have thousands of them stored in my back-yard shed.

  Our gift wrap was to die for — we had a brown paper version, printed with our “fleur de lis” logo design in green, that looked attractive tied with string. For special gifts, we had a lovely double-sided sheet with the same design in faint embossing, one side green, the other off-white. When a book was expertly wrapped in this, the reverse colouring could be used to exquisite effect. We offered free gift-wrapping at Tea In The Library. Most of this, however, turned out to take place at Christmas time, when we used much cheaper red or Christmas green wrap, bought bulk.

  Most important among our printed materials were our bookmarks — special designs that Danielle had come up with, bearing our logo and with a top flap that helped hold your page, each with a literary-related quotation in an attractive cursive font. There were six. Only four remain extant, but you get the drift:

  Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

  Sir Richard Steele 1672 – 1729

  A good book is the purest essence of a human soul.

  Thomas Carlyle 1795 – 1881

  Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

  W H Auden 1907 – 1973

  People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

  Logan Pearsall Smith 1865 – 1946

  Actually, I took quite an interest in bookshop bookmarks around this time. While some are rather boring and as cheaply produced as the shop can get away with, others are fascinating. Readings Bookshops in Melbourne must take the prize, with specially commissioned poems on their bookmarks, over several years. Better Read Than Dead use attractive recycled brown card, with a “To Do” list on the back — the first item is filled in: “go to bookshop”.
At E. Shaver’s Fine Books in Savannah, Georgia, I discovered an interesting one, called a “Booksaver”. The bookmark includes a tear-off slip at the bottom with space to write in the title, the date borrowed, and the borrower’s name.

  Tea In The Library’s unique bookmarks are collectors’ items now, so you if you have one, preserve it!

  One other addition to our stationery and bag supplies was the calico carry bag, chosen and ordered by Louise while I was away trekking. Although I might have quibbled with the final design decision, these bags did become useful and widely used by our customers. We generally gave them away with substantial purchases, or they could be bought for a small sum — $4.00 from memory. I believe it was useful to have people walking about the city with our name and logo emblazoned on the bag they were carrying. The canvas bags also carried a quotation:

  Civilisation means food and literature all round – Aldous Huxley

  If you read Sybille Bedford’s marvelous memoir Quicksands you’ll see a context for that, and probably agree.

  By the time of our “soft opening” the bookshelves were about half-full. Judicious display of titles face-out helped make us look well-stocked while we accumulated the rest of our books. Our menu was ready, the doors were opened, our booksellers and our waiters and waitresses were kitted out in their name tags and “Tea In The Library” uniforms (cream shirts/blouses and green aprons — one version embroidered with “CAFÉ” and the other with “BOOKS”), and the customers began exploring.