As you can see from the pictures, Stonemans Bookroom in Castlemaine – the place where I work – is not your standard bookshop. That’s what customers seem to love about it. Almost every time I work, a visitor says how unique/amazing/untidy we are. Locals seem to feel we are a treasure or at least worth supporting. Last week a visitor from the UK asked if she could take photographs.
“Why?” I asked. “Surely you’ve got shops like this at home.” (In my imagination, the UK is full of delightfully cluttered, eccentric, old-fashioned bookstores)
She shook her head and snapped away, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like it!”