Saturday, February 01, 2014

The end of a chapter - Parsons Bookshop Wellington closing

The Dominion Post - 01/02/2014

Parsons
MAARTEN HOLL/Fairfax NZ
OFF THE SHELF: Beatrice and Julian Parsons are closing the landmark bookshop started by their father in 1948.

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky called Parsons Books and Music ‘the most beautiful bookshop in the world'. Now the Lambton Quay institution is closing. Julian Parsons talks to Diana Dekker.

It's a day like any other in Parsons Books & Music. People browse, Bach drifts, a cake cools in the kitchen, the cafe is full. But it's almost all over for the 66-year-old Wellington institution. From Monday, all the books and music will be half price, and in a fortnight, the shop will close.
"It'll be a magnificent sale, a wonderful sale. We're full of treasures," says Julian Parsons too brightly.
Wonderful, yes, but welcome, no, and hard to believe when the shop is buzzing as it is. "If only I was imagining it," he says. "If it was booming, I wouldn't do it."


Parsons, 71, joined his father in the shop 54 years ago. "Each morning I unlock the door, the same door I unlocked 54 years ago." 
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2 comments:

  1. Tilly Lloyd10:05 pm

    We were very sobered when Roger and Helen closed in Auckland and we are very saddened to hear this announcement from Beatrice & Julian. Parsons Bookshop provided Alan Preston a great deal of warmth & light in his early bookselling days in the 60s, and through all the change since, that warmth and light never wavered and has kept Unity Books strong.

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  2. michael byrne11:12 pm

    Sad to learn this news. Was it Orwell who said you can tell a lot about a society by the number of bookshops it has? By implication, we are being dumbed down by the closure of Parsons Books. Booming, of course, is the operative word. But if Julian could 'hold the line' he would (will?) see a trend back. Never have again what was once enjoyed of course, and a lot to ask of a 70 year old. But still, isn't there a business model that incorporates books & music for an older and younger demographic?

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