The books of Luke
From the counter, Luke Terbutt watches second-hand and antiquarian book treasures wash up at Alice’s.
Words by Freya Howarth
Photography by Tanika Gondhali
Books wash up at Alice’s Bookshop in Rathdowne Village, a point of collection, recycling and recirculation. Overseeing this ebb and flow is Luke Terbutt. Byline: Words by Freya Howarth Photography by Tanika Gondhali “I used to come in here as a customer, probably once a month,” says Luke Terbutt, owner of Alice’s Bookshop in Rathdowne Village, Carlton North. “I got a text message one day when I was working at Avenue Bookstore saying ‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ and it was from Josh, the old owner. I was thinking ‘He wouldn’t want to be selling the bookshop?’ I don’t know why, it just came into my head.” It turned out that the previous owners Josh and Ellen were looking to sell Alice’s so that they could move back to Wales, to Haye-on-Wye – a town famous for its 22 bookshops, many of which are second-hand and antiquarian. “I think they wanted to start a shop in Haye-on-Wye. It’s like Clunes, but bigger.’ Luke accepted the offer and has been running Alice’s for three years now: “It wasn’t something that I had ever planned. Maybe I dreamed it. I didn’t have any financials behind me. I had to borrow money to pay for all the stock, essentially, and the brand. That’s what you’re paying for when you buy a business.”
Just as chance brought Luke to Alice’s, chance governs much of the business of second-hand bookselling, particularly when it comes to acquiring stock. “It’s like coming into a second-hand bookshop, in that you don’t know what you’re going to get. You’ve just walked into someone’s space. They’ve created it, they’ve organised the books. You just have to take what they’ve got and I think that’s different – it’s curated. You hope that they’ll have certain things, but it’s not always going to be there. “So it’s more about serendipity and luck. You can’t just order things. I’ve got a pretty big philosophy section but at the moment it’s quite light and I get frustrated that I can’t ring up a supplier and get some books. I have to wait until they come and it’s been a while since I last got some really good philosophy books. I know that I could be losing money because of that, ’cause it’s one of those areas that does really well. I know if I had Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel – all the big names: Derrida, Deleuze, they would just sell.” One of the challenges that Luke faces is choosing which books to buy for the shop, although working as a bookseller for more than twenty years has given Luke a good insight into what people like to buy. “It’s hard because what sells and what you like are different things.”
Clunes in Victoria is a local example of a Book Town, having gained accreditation in 2012 from the International Organisation of Book Towns. Clunes hosts a yearly book festival and regular events throughout the year.
Derrida, Deleuze, they would just sell.” One of the challenges that Luke faces is choosing which books to buy for the shop, although working as a bookseller for more than twenty years has given Luke a good insight into what people like to buy. “It’s hard because what sells and what you like are different things.” Pull quote: “You can’t just order things, so it’s more about serendipity and luck.”
The Alchemist is Brazilian author Paulo Coelho’s bestselling novel. This story of a man’s spiritual journey elicits strong responses, either of devotion or derision, as Goodreads reviews attest. It’s like the Vegemite of books.
Some books sell so reliably that Luke buys a copy whenever he sees them. “Ulysses, any of Joyce’s, Virginia Woolf – these are things that I like as well. Dickens. Dostoyevsky – the Russians – if I could have a mainline to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, maybe Gogol as well, Nabokov definitely. I think that’s what people come here for, and they’re harder to get hold of, because not everyone is into them, but the people that are into them really want them.” It’s kind of a nice change. At my bookshop, the book we sell the most of is The Alchemist. Luke acquires books through a range of channels, includ- ing people who bring in a box of books and garage sales. “I went to an amazing house: this guy was selling every- thing that he had and everything was in mint condition. He had a set of paperbacks of Nabokov; he had a lot of Latin American authors; he had a huge Folio Society collection – all shrink-wrapped. Basically brand new. I spent two hours loading the car. I took everything I could because it was all amazing.” When Luke asked him why he was selling everything, he told Luke he was moving to Queensland. “But he didn’t tell me why he was moving. I moved from Queensland and I sent all my books down here and it’s not that expensive. But he had twelve grand worth of books – maybe more.” A massive minimalist conversion? “Maybe it is just a change of life. It’s a big decision to go from being a massive collector.”
Luke also acquires stock through donations: “When it’s tough sometimes they’re really important because I can’t always afford to spend a lot of money. When I first had the shop, this couple called up and they wanted to sell their son’s philosophy books.” Their son was a philosophy lecturer who had recently died of a brain tumour. “It touched me because my dad died of a brain tumour, about ten years before. It was just such an amazing collec- tion of books and they were a lovely couple. So I gave a few hundred dollars to a brain cancer charity. I think there were probably twelve boxes of philosophy and it was all the big names. I priced them and put them on the shelf in one after- noon. And the next thing you know, a customer came in and bought a box-and-a-half worth. It was such a beautiful thing, and sad. I think he must have been quite young, about my age or younger.” There’s something so personal about a person’s library. “And some of them were underlined, and notes, and highlighted.”
Marginalia, treasured notes and items, the miscellaneous detritus of people’s lives are often concealed between the pages of the books that Luke receives. I asked him what were the strangest things he’d found in a book: “I’ve found letters that were quite personal. They’re out the back in a drawer somewhere. I read them and they were about family, relationships between father and daughter, over long distances. It’s quite weird to be reading someone’s letters; it’s too close to someone you don’t really know about. I’ve got Virginia Woolf’s letters at home, and diaries. When it’s some- one that’s famous it doesn’t feel as bad.” Luke shows me a weathered business card advertising a private investigation agency’s services. “This is not the strangest thing, but quite interesting. It’s in Melbourne. It’s called Geronimo. And I looked these guys up: they still exist! I don’t know if that’s still their address. I was almost tempted to call them, but obviously that number’s not going to work.”
Luke comes across many unusual books, particularly rare and antiquarian books and first editions. Among Luke’s many treasures is a first edition of Winnie-the-Pooh, which he is holding on consignment. “But it’s not the first edition; it’s the first first edition because it’s a signed limited edition which is in a bigger format than the original. Limited to 350 copies, signed by him. I don’t actually own it; this person still does, but I’ll get a small cut.” I wondered whether the people who buy these rare and antiquarian books actually read them or just like owning them. “I think probably both. With antiquarian, say eighteenth century, nineteenth century, stuff that’s possibly falling apart or very precious, can be damaged easily, I think people defi- nitely aren’t reading them. I have Don Quixote from 1719. It’s three hundred years old next year. I’ve got a friend from Melbourne Uni and I think she might be interested in it. It’s beautiful. It’s one of those books that I’d like to take home as well, but I’d be doing the same thing as the collector would be: just coveting it. I think she might actually read it, because I don’t think she’s got that translation – it’s an early translation. The spine is holding together but I think you’d have to be very careful.
This 1719 edition of Don Quixote was translated by “Several Hands”, but Cervantes wrote it with only one. He lost the use of his left arm in the Battle of Lepanto and would later say that he “had lost the movement of the left hand for the glory of the right.”
“But just handling those books is really nice. And the smell. Often it’s because they’ve got a bit of water damage, but that smell permeates it. I collect first editions myself, modern liter- ature, and unless I’ve got a second copy, I read them.” The ways in which we consume products and stories are changing. Even as online shopping and streaming services make it easier than ever to acquire or experience new things, there seems to be a growing interest in and concern about what we consume, how we consume it, where it comes from and where it goes. I wonder whether this trend towards ‘mind- ful consumption’ has had an impact on the second-hand book trade. “You think that there would be. I don’t think that there has been. I’ve actually had stuff that has come in and it’s gone out and then it’s come in again.” The very same one? “Yeah! ‘Cause people do trades, but then sometimes I’ll get books that I don’t know about that have come from here, that’ll have an old Alice’s Bookshop sticker, because they’ve been in the area. So they’re getting recycled three times, four times, and they’re still holding together. They might not have been read – you don’t know that. But they could have been. I quite like that, when you see the sticker. Then it obviously came from somewhere else before that so it’s a four gener- ation thing.” I suggest he is part of the movement of books through the city. “That’s quite exciting. It’s not something you get to see in a new bookshop.” As we’re concluding the interview, Luke steps out of the shop to look at a box of books in the back of a woman’s car. Apparently there are some philosophy books among them. While Luke pursues this promising lead, I take the opportu- nity to admire the rare, antiquarian and first edition books in the front display case and chat to Jayden who helps out at the shop sometimes and was minding the counter during the interview. I admire a first edition copy of Nevil Shute’s apoc- alyptic On the Beach, selling for $350. I tell him that I have one at home that cost much less because it’s held together by stickytape. Jayden tells me that it’s hard to find first editions of On the Beach in good condition, mostly because it seems that many people read them on the beach. Luke returns empty handed. He had carried the box of books halfway across the road when the woman decided she didn’t want to part with them after all. What the tide washes up onto the shore it can equally wash away.
Apocryphal Now While in Melbourne acting in the 1959 film On the Beach, Ava Gardner was infamously misquoted as saying “On the Beach is a story about the end of the world, and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it.”