A job that changed me: As a bookseller I realised reading is more than an insular pleasure – it builds connection too

I learned how to recommend the perfect book for a child whose parents were divorcing and how to identify something based on vague descriptors such as ‘the cover is orange’

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I was in my early 20s when I landed my dream job. It was early 2018 and I had just started a master’s degree at the University of Melbourne, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with a bachelor of arts.

I had majored in creative writing without really thinking about a future career, certain only that I had always loved writing and reading books. But it turned out debating the pros and cons of Ernest Hemingway and penning poems about teenage breakups didn’t exactly land you a job.

So I returned to university, attempting to channel my hero at the time, Helen Garner.

Life felt listless. My submissions to literary journals were getting rejected. I was jumping from hospitality job to hospitality job while remaining terrible at hospitality. And studying media and communications was surprisingly uninspiring.

Then, one night, I went to a book launch at the Trades Hall in Carlton, lured by free drinks and its proximity to my house. There I met Christine Gordon, the programming and community engagement manager at Readings, the independent bookstore chain that was running the event.

I had emailed my résumé to Readings at least once a year since I had turned 16, without ever really expecting to hear back.

Bookstores had always been my safe space, my haven, and Readings was a cultural institution. I professed all this to Gordon, and instead of politely telling me to leave her alone, she said they could always use help with events.

With that, I was in. The shifts weren’t regular, but I was on the roster. Once or twice a week, I would head into the Lygon Street store and pick up boxes of books, an old computer and an Eftpos machine. Then I’d wheel it all haphazardly on a trolley to the event and sell the author’s books.

One of my early gigs was for Jordan Peterson at the Melbourne Recital Centre. I had no idea who he was and couldn’t understand why people were willing to line up for hours to get their books signed. At other events, I was often fan-girling, including when Helen Garner herself was among a group of speakers to appear at the Church of All Nations. She didn’t talk to me.

I had more luck at writers’ festivals, where authors usually had to sit with you to sign. Jimmy Barnes laughed at one of my jokes, but Irvine Welsh gave me the cold shoulder.

The events job eventually secured me permanent shifts at Readings Hawthorn – the same store I had visited almost weekly as a child. It felt like coming home.

I had some stumbling blocks, such as when I was given the responsibility to maintain the graphic novels section and, instead of arranging them in alphabetical order, as is custom, I created my own unique system based upon categories such as “feminism” and “coming of age”. But I made up for it with my whimsical charm (I hoped) and love of customers.

As much as I adored books, it was the customers who made the job so rewarding. One day a grieving husband who used to always visited the store with his wife, came in seeking a book to help him mourn. I recommended The Year of Magical Thinking and CS Lewis’s A Grief Observed, and we spoke about memories and of loss.

Elderly readers would often call up on the landline just to have a chat. For several months, we helped a man collect 100 hardbacks of his favourite books for his granddaughter’s 21st birthday. I will never forget him.

Our policy was not to bother people with chit-chat but let them come to us. If they wanted to sit for hours and leave without buying anything, that was OK too.

Then Covid hit, and suddenly the bookstore was shut for months. When we were able to reopen in limited ways, it was as though people had their sanctuary again.

Reading had always been an insular pleasure of mine, but working in a bookshop taught me about people – about connection and community that can be so hard to foster in large cities.

I learned how to recommend the perfect book for a child whose parents were divorcing, how to gently veer male readers away from sports biographies, and how to identify something based on vague descriptors such as “the cover is orange” (it was nearly always The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck).

And I was changed by my colleagues, too, eccentric and wildly intelligent people – often writers or other creatives – who read voraciously and taught me about classical music, history and queer science fiction.

After a few wonderful years, my first journalism gig brought my time with Readings to a close. Bookstores, though, remain that sanctuary to me, and since leaving, I have dreamed, somewhat starry-eyed, of opening my own one day.

I still visit them at least once a week, and take pleasure in plucking books from my home bookshelf to recommend to friends. Whenever that time in my life comes up, I say resolutely: “That was the best job I ever had.”