The Bookshop Podcast
The Bookshop Podcast
Cathy Slater Owner of Dulwich Books, U.K.
Join me in conversation with Cathy Slater, owner of Dulwich Books, as she sheds light on the profound connection between independent bookstores and their communities. Through her journey, Cathy illustrates how booksellers can make a significant impact by understanding readers' needs while emphasizing diversity in literature and the importance of small presses.
In this episode:
• Sharing insights from a career in publishing to bookselling
• The lasting history and impact of Dulwich Books in its community
• Exploring the challenges and joys of promoting diverse literature
• The reciprocal relationship between the bookstore and local schools
• Advocating for the roles of small and medium presses in the industry
• Addressing how to engage children in reading amidst digital distractions
• Highlighting the passion-driven bookselling model and reader connection
Dulwich Books
James, Percival Everett
Sort of Books episode on The Bookshop Podcast
Oonagh Stransky (Héloïse Press) episode on The Bookshop Podcast
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Judi Dench, Brendan O’Hea
Time of the Child, Niall Williams
Links to help with L.A. Fire Relief:
California Community Foundation
United Way of Greater Los Angeles
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a bibliophile. Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast. Each week, I present interviews with authors, independent bookshop owners and booksellers from around the globe and publishing professionals. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to Episode 281.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to comprehend the devastation in Los Angeles from the fires. The emotional sadness is overwhelming. We all know someone who has lost their home and for some they have lost someone they love. Pets are displaced, many suffering from severe burns. Wildlife has died. As I speak, the devastation and sadness is ongoing. This is the time humanity gathers to help each other, whether offering a shoulder to cry on donations of clothing, food and shelter, fostering displaced animals and monetary donations, or simply offering thanks to first responders. People who do not understand Los Angeles often scoff about this incredible city, but in my eyes and the eyes of many, she is the city of angels. She is beauty, nature, creativity and culture. She is love and dreams. She is hope. Please consider giving in whatever way you can. I'll put a list of places accepting donations in the show notes. Here are a few to get you started California Community Foundation, california Fire Foundation, world Central Kitchen, united Way of Greater Los Angeles, american Red Cross, pasadena Humane Society, los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, mutual Aid Los Angeles, los Angeles Regional Food Bank and GoFundMe.
Speaker 1:Dulwich Books is an award-winning, independent and much-loved bookshop serving the local community of Dulwich in the UK for over 40 years. The bookshop stocks a wide range of titles as well as a fantastic choice of children's books, greeting cards, gift stationery and jigsaws. In addition, they offer a loyalty card scheme. Just ask at the till when making your purchases. Their friendly, knowledgeable and experienced staff are on hand to recommend books and help with any questions. Today I'm chatting with Cathy Slater, the owner of Dulwich Books. Hi, cathy, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here. Delighted to be here too. Thank you for asking me. Let's begin with learning about you and your work in publishing and what inspired you to become a bookseller and bookshop owner.
Speaker 2:Well, the journey was not mapped out at all. I had a career of over 30 years in publishing, always with an international slant, so working with bookshops across Europe, and then working with foreign rights and translation rights, selling to international book publishers and translation rights selling to international book publishers. So after 30 years I was just watching something different. So I didn't plan or set out to work in a bookshop, but I just saw an advert in the bookseller, which is the organ of the book trade they call it and I thought you know what? That would be fascinating to see it from another perspective. And then I became the manager and then I purchased the bookshop when my previous owner set up her own publishing company. So it was all meant to be.
Speaker 1:And Cathy, what have you learned from being a bookseller and a bookshop owner that you wish you'd known when you were in international rights?
Speaker 2:I think you are never aware enough of the end user when you're in publishing. You're in your nice office with your colleagues and they're all speaking the same language. You're meeting authors. You're not meeting the end user, so you're not actually talking to readers. So that was invaluable, that lesson of how you can recommend a book to a customer. The editor has no idea who that end user is because they're not in the shop, on the shop floor, with the customer in front of them. So that has been really, really interesting to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wouldn't it be great if people in publishing had to actually go and work in a bookstore even if it was for a week, an indie bookshop to get the gist of how wonderful it is to be able to talk to readers and hear about the books they want to read? Having worked in a local indie bookshop here Bart's Books which is wonderful I quickly learned that people come in there and they want to know about what you're reading. They want books to be suggested to them, and what I loved about working there was that I got to share the names of books and authors who are not on the bestseller lists. They probably need to be, they should be, but people would come back and want more suggestions because they love the books or the author, and I found that to be a kind of alchemy. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, it's the final end of the journey from the author, the editor producing this book. The final end is to put the book in a customer's hands. So for me, bookselling has come at the end of my career. But a lot of young people start in bookselling and then go on to work in publishing and I always think, oh well, I've done it completely the wrong way around, but actually for me it works, completely works.
Speaker 1:And I'm older now, so it's also nice to feel grounded and in one place as we get older. Can you tell me a little about the history of Dulwich Books?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we don't know. We know for sure that last year we celebrated 40 years because I had been delving into some of the old emails and found that we had celebrated 30 years into some of the old emails and found that we had celebrated 30 years 10 years prior. So I haven't been able to find much information about the early years, but some of the customers knew it when it was just new and they used to take their children there when they're, and now their children are in their 40s by 30. So it's a lovely journey and it's been a part of the community for 40 years. Many different owners. I've only been there six years, seven years actually, and it's been always just much loved by the community.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love to hear that, before we delve deeper into Dulwich Books and also the area of Dulwich, can you walk us through the job description of a publishing rights director?
Speaker 2:It's quite difficult. I would say it's got sales at its heart. You've got to be able to sell. You have to listen, understand what somebody's needs are. I think you might have a great product but it's not what they want, so you have to really understand what books they're doing or what they're interested in. There are so many different things. It's about sales, about listening, know your product really really important and enthuse. You know you enthuse people when you're talking about something. I think that's part of the sales process for me Building relationships.
Speaker 1:Yes indeed, Building relationships is what life is about. Yeah yeah, yeah, exactly. In the early 80s I lived in London for a while and so I got my map out and wanted to find Dulwich on the map and I saw it's between Crystal Palace, brixton, london, Bexley and Croydon. Does it have a village feel?
Speaker 2:It's an extraordinary thing In about the five-mile radius there are about Eight bookshops and each one is at the heart of that little community. So yeah, I mean, just up the road there's another bookshop in Dulwich Village, there's a bookshop in Sydenham, there's a bookshop in Crystal Palace, we know them all. Brixton has a lovely shop, Clapham. They're all little sort of suburbs of South London but they all have their own community. I mean, I really like the community. It's got parks, there's families, there's older folks. It's quite a mixed bag. It feels villagey, sort of suburban, but more urban than suburban. It's just a really unique atmosphere I think.
Speaker 1:Do you have that congestion, the heavy traffic? Feel as you do in London.
Speaker 2:Well, traffic's always a problem. Yeah, the traffic's got really, really bad. We're close to the South Circular, which is infamous, and it's a really, really busy road. It sort of should be a motorway. It's got so much traffic on it. Yeah, the congestion's killing the hearts of our village life, I think.
Speaker 1:And my husband and I watch Escape to the Country every now and again. Oh yes, and as we're lucky enough to live in the country over here in the States, it's interesting to see how many people actually want to leave the cities and move into a village or the countryside.
Speaker 2:And I fantasize about living in the countryside and then I realize there are no buses and there's no theaters and you have to drive everywhere. So I think our local mayors and the council are trying to eliminate traffic, but people are very resistant. They love their cars, but I sort of know there's a better way with people walking and cycling. But I drive my car, so I'm a hypocrite.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to know what to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cathy, would you say Dulwich is a diverse and inclusive community, and how does this affect the curation of the bookshop? Oh, definitely.
Speaker 2:We've actually, even in the seven years I've been there, I've seen it changing. We do have a very old sort of generational thing. Where they've been they're in their 70s, probably now they've been coming to the bookshop.
Speaker 1:Hey, Cathy, be careful. I feel 70 is very young, only because I'm about five years away from it.
Speaker 2:Hey, 70s and up, and I feel quite old sometimes when the younger people come in. So some of my staff are younger than me. They all are, and that's nice because they've got children. They can relate to the little ones. But I know it's very, very diverse. I mean I would like to make it even more diverse. But we respond to the customers and then the market. But we definitely try and make our selection of books as diverse as possible.
Speaker 1:The reason I ask this is because you speak Italian, French, English and a little Spanish, so do you carry books in languages other than English, particularly children's books?
Speaker 2:Yes, I saw that question. I mean we buy all our books direct from publishers or from our gardeners. They are the country's main distributor, millions of titles in stock and they might have La Peste by Jean kamil um, jean-paul sartre, and they have maybe a few in german. Very little stock in in foreign languages so logistically we can't find those books in different languages, um and I and I know that our customers ask occasionally if we can. During during the pandemic, ironically, we sold lots of copies of La Peste, which I read for O-Level all those years ago about the plague. But yeah, so in answer to your question, we have no, we don't carry stock of books in other languages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd say, out of the I don't know 200 bookshop owners and booksellers I've spoken to over the last four years, many have said they are on the lookout for books in other languages, specifically children's books, that have like one page where it might be in French and then the second page is in English. They're saying there's a real need for that, there's a niche for it.
Speaker 2:Well, I know that in America they do sell a lot of Spanish books because of the Latin American communities. I think the people who buy our books want to read in English. So, even though we have Americans, we have French, we have Germans, we have Italians, spanish, asian, we have lots of different languages, but they want to read in English, I think, because if you're reading a classic, you lose a lot in translation if you're able to read it in the original. But we like some of the French books in translation, spanish books in translation. I'm a great fan of French literature, but I don't think we'd sell any in French.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about books that have been translated into English. My husband and I love reading books in translation. He specifically loves translations from Japanese into English and I like Japanese to English, but I also love Spanish and Italian books that have been translated. I think the beauty of reading a book that's been translated is in the cadence of the writing. You can learn a lot about a country just through the style of the writing.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, well, the Japanese phenomenon is incredible, isn't it? They all have such a beautiful. Yeah, I absolutely agree, they're doing very well.
Speaker 1:Well, I would love to hear about your booksellers what they're reading and if they have a favourite book to hand sell.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, right now, I mean I couldn't pick just one. I don't think I can pick just one book At the moment. I suppose, if I am picking one book, our manager is selling a lot of copies of Held it's one of the Booker shortlist and James Purser Everett, another one on the Booker shortlist.
Speaker 2:Rochelle, who works in the shop, is an incredible reader. She reads so much, but I couldn't tell you what she's recommending right now. You know, because she reads so much. She's couldn't tell you what she's recommending right now. You know because she reads so much. She's always hand-selling to customers. I'm always hearing her saying, yeah, have you read this, have you read this? I mean, when Cormac McCarthy had those books last year, two years ago, she was selling a lot of Cormac McCarthy's books. That's before he died. Kitty reads a lot of historical fiction fiction, so she's excellent on um and she's really into theater, so she'll be selling the man who pills and pays the rent. That's the book by him about shakespeare.
Speaker 2:We had a scottish bookseller who sadly left us last year and he recommended a lot of scottish writers like um uh well, douglas stewart, obviously. Um, lucan booth well, douglas Stewart, obviously. Lucan Booth was a book he absolutely championed a book called Trust. He really loved that. Tom Lake by Anne Patchett that's been one of my favourite books of the last three few years. The New Sally Rooney I love that. I love Irish literature ah, me too. So yes, it's hard to really narrow it down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I am enthralled by the writing coming out of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland over the last like 10 years. It is phenomenal. I guess it always has been, and I think one of the reasons is they cherish their writers, they cherish their creatives, and that's a lot different to many other countries, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yes, well, I think they have the lyrical sort of soul. I do really love the older ones as well. William Trevor I'm reading this is a proof the Time of the Child. Now Williams, he's a wonderful writer. He's a lot older but he's Every sentence is absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1:You just can't believe how wonderful, how wonderfully he writes Reminder to everyone, I will put links to the books that we've mentioned in the show notes. I'd like to talk a little about your community. How does the local Dalit community support the bookshop and how does the bookshop support the community?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's just very reciprocal. Does the bookshop support the community? Yes, it's just very reciprocal. I mean we don't need to do an awful lot to keep them coming in. They love coming in the shop. They will prefer to buy from us than buy from an online a well-known online company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm with them on that.
Speaker 2:So they're very supportive. We have a system of loyalty cards where they get money off if they um. For each stamp they accumulate um, so they that's very, very popular. People love, love that um. And we just had bookshop day. We really felt the love. It was packed all day long, it was busy, sort of felt like christmas. It was packed all day long, it was busy, sort of felt like Christmas. There was so much love, people all coming in, so that was lovely for us. It really just made us feel so happy.
Speaker 2:We support a lot of local schools. We try and marry an author with a school, and when the author's at a school, we'll go and sell his books with a school, and when the author's at a school, we'll go and sell his books. So that's a lovely thing to see young children learning about how great it is to be a writer and how many different worlds you can travel to. So, yes, the school world. I'd like to do more of that. We have a lot of local schools and it's very, very inspiring to to do work with small children as well.
Speaker 1:I love it when you actually get to witness a child in middle school. I think that's six, seven, eight. Where you are, I'm not too sure, but they get the connection that, oh, I could become a writer too.
Speaker 2:It's fabulous yeah, yeah it is. But they they run past the shop and say mom, it's the bookshop. I can hear them in the street. You know they're so excited that there is. There is some concern that, um, boys are after about 12, say 12, 11, 12, they're stopping reading and the parents are in great despair that they used to love reading and now they're always on their devices or they're just lost that habit. So it seems to be a thing prevalent. So as long as we can keep them reading, I think it's really, really important. And the publishing is fantastic. The children's publishing at the moment is phenomenally good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always say to parents or caretakers when they say to me how do I get my child to read? He or she just isn't wanting to read at all. I think the best thing you can do for children is to let them read what they want to read. Put just books around your house that they might want to just pick up. They can be nonfiction, they can be fiction, picture books, national Geographic magazines, anything. If you do this, you will find that they will get an interest in something I know. When my children were little that's what we did and it definitely worked. They're both passionate readers and that came from reading a lot of Captain Underpants when they were younger. It was huge about 20 years ago, 25 years ago.
Speaker 2:Oh still is. And Bunny vs Monkey, they absolutely love it. 25 years ago oh still is. And Bunny versus Monkey, they absolutely love it. Dave Pilkey. So he obviously knows how to speak to children and he was dyslexic himself, so he's got something definitely. And some parents are a little bit concerned that they're reading comic books but, as you absolutely said, they enjoy it. They're reading. As long as they're reading, I agree with you?
Speaker 1:What about you? What are you currently reading, Cathy?
Speaker 2:Well, I usually read about three books at the same time. So I'm reading the one I just mentioned, the Nell Williams, about three quarters of the way through that, about three quarters of the way through that. And I'm afraid I'm reading a Richard Osman book because I love the ease of his books and he's got a real place in literature. I think he just writes what we call cozy crime and I'm almost finished a new William Boyd book, his latest book. We get a lot of proofs. I've got a pile about this high I can see it from here about 10 books in my to-be-read pile. So I don't know what I'll read after Niall Williams. Actually I think maybe the Anne Michaels, the Held it's called Held it's the Booker shortlist. That'd be my next one, them Held it's called Held.
Speaker 1:It's the Booker shortlist. That'd be my next one, I think. I think we'd be remiss if we didn't say thank you and mention the small and medium presses. They are doing remarkable work supporting authors who normally wouldn't have a voice in the big traditional publishing market, and in the UK you have some fantastic small presses market and in the UK you have some fantastic small presses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we like the small one Fitzcarraldo Pushkin.
Speaker 1:I mean there's lots of small presses that are part of the Independent Alliance and I'm going to give a shout out to Sort of Books, which is a small publisher in the UK. They have actually been on the show and I'll make sure to put a link in the show notes to that episode. They published the Seven Moons of Mali, al Maida, by Shehan Karuna Talaka, and he won the Booker Prize in 2022 for that book. Another UK small press I'd like to give a shout out to is Heloise Press. Ena Marti is the founder. Ena is going to be on the show in about another month. I recently read a book called Abandonment, which was originally written by Herminia Deloro, but it was translated by Una Strunsky, and Una has been on the show also, so I'll put a link to her episode in the show notes. But Abandonment is absolutely brilliant, beautifully written book. So, for all those small and medium pressers, reach out to me, I'd love to give you a shout out or have you on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I worry about how many books are just not going to end up being read. 1900 books were published on Super Thursday last week, and it's an incredible number in one day.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, that's a lot of books.
Speaker 2:Yep, so it just seems it can be very overwhelming. We've got to be very careful, but we definitely would like to support smaller presses and unique voices.
Speaker 1:You mentioned earlier Fitzcarraldo, which is an independent publisher specializing in contemporary fiction and long-term essays. I love the simplicity of their designs, their covers.
Speaker 2:I must say it's very lovely to see their book selling in our shop. They've definitely got, and I've been to some bookshops where they have, with the blue on one side and the white ones on the other side, so really sort of celebrating that publisher and some of my favorite books over the last five years have been published through small and medium presses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. And this is the problem we had with the pandemic is that we would definitely try and stock those books, talk to the customers about these books and in the pandemic nobody could come in, nobody could browse, nobody could see what else there was. They probably struggled to hear what was coming out. So it was terrible for the smaller presses and unknown authors. But we like to champion debuts, the sort of the young writers we follow their careers, because Sally Rooney was probably one of them. I tend to just read. If I feel that they're going to sell, I feel I should read them. So I know what they're about. But if I could read more, I would read, actually branch more into very, very small independent presses.
Speaker 1:I should do that more. With the state of the world right now, I have a lot of people come to me and saying oh, I just can't read, I'm so worried about everything. My suggestion is to either read poetry before you sleep or some light fiction. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:I think short stories are good for that. I really love a short story and from an early age I used to read the Canadian author, who has slightly been shamed recently. She's one of my favourite short story writers. It's such a perfect form, isn't it? Have you read Claire Keegan's books? They're almost like a pocket book. They're little. I mean, they are almost like short stories, aren't they? No novellas, but such spare, beautiful prose. I think she's hard to beat. Actually, I can't think of anyone who is as wonderful as her. But there's so much that I haven't read.
Speaker 1:Kathy, I love chatting with you about books.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you too, I love to talk about books.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to ask you one more bookish question. Did you enjoy Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell?
Speaker 2:Oh yes, absolutely, and all her books, the Marriage Portrait.
Speaker 1:Yes, the Marriage Portrait is on my shelf. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Cathy, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me on the Bookshop Podcast. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:It's so nice that you invited me to be part of this, and I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Cathy Sl slater, owner of deluge books in the uk. To help the show reach more people, please share episodes with friends and family and on social media and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. To find out more about the bookshop podcast, go to thebookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the Bookshop Podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at thebookshoppodcastcom. The Bookshop Podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson Beverley, theme music provided by Brian Beverley, executive assistant to Mandy Adrian Otterhahn and graphic design by Frances Farala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.