H&H bookseller launches Dublin indie

01.12.09 Katie Allen - The Bookseller

A new independent bookshop has opened in Dublin. The Gutter Bookshop was launched on 26th November by author John Boyne and children's author Anthony Horowitz.

The shop was set up by Bob Johnston, who has been a bookseller for 20 years at Blackwell, Ottakars and Waterstone's in the UK and Ireland, and was most recently fiction and children's book buyer for Hughes & Hughes. He is joined by Ann Geraghty, who has worked for Waterstone's in Ireland for the past 13 years.

"It's about getting back to basics" Johnston said. “it's about talking to our customers, finding out what they really want and responding to it. The problem with the big chains is that they find it hard to listen to their customers, all the power has been taken away from the booksellers on the shopfloor so they struggle to respond quickly to their customers' needs.

"Customer service is such an important aspect of what we do and you can't put a value on it."

The Gutter Bookshop will have an events programme including a reading group, poetry nights, book launches and children's events. Johnston said “We want to make the shop an exciting and lively place and we really want to get the local communities involved . . . We're aiming to have something going on every Thursday evening so that people get to know that they can drop in and participate in something literary and fun."

Based on Cow's Lane in Temple Bar, Dublin, the shop takes its name from the Oscar Wilde quote “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".