Posted by Damon on 10/19/05 09:34

Tony wrote:
> Book shops are not very popular in NZ and the ones that are there mainly
> sell books about NZ.

Wading through that sweeping generalisation......Damon gets his back
up..
What were you a tourist? As a kiwi who has worked in NZ book shops for
a number of years I can catagorically state that that is a load of
utter tosh! yes sir i said tosh!!

There are a number of chain bookstores in New Zealand, Whitcoulls,
Paperplus etc who sell exactly the same sorts of books that you get
here, gardening books, international fiction/non-fiction, science
whatever you would be hard pressed to tell them apart from UK book
shops, they look and smell and feel the same. The shops I worked in
had very small dedicated New Zealand sections because we weren't in
main tourist areas. However if you visit NZ as a tourist and visit
tourist areas, then you will encounted tourist targetted bookshops that
perhaps give the impression that NZ bookshops sell mainly NZ oriented
books, these aren't book shops per sé, these are tourist shops that
sell books.

As for bookshops not being popular, where did you get that wildly piece
of pseudo-trivia?, the first bookshop i worked in had another rival
bookshop 5 doors down and we were still expanding. Our book sales were
mobbed and we had to rent mall space to accommodate it, we are as well
read as any western country yet you give the idea that NZers look at
readers, grunt and say "wotcha readin...for?" You are talking about a
population of 4 Million in an area the size of England, you can't
expect to see as many bookshops, it's economics not popularity. I
think you will probably find that statistically there are more
bookshops per capita in NZ than in the UK or most western countries.
Statistics are great, did you know that Wellington alone has more
cafés per head of population than New York City.

Anyway, I'm sure the OP will be able to find an online source if he
googles hard enough


Damon

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