Last week, on Thursday 25 May, a Borders bookshop opened in our fair city. By all accounts it was a momentous occasion, as they even had a minister, the Honorable Sheila McHale, to officiate at the opening ceremony, followed by breakfast and coffee. (Yes, we librarians got invited to the opening. No, I didn’t go.)
I visited the new shop on the Friday after the grand opening, first during lunchtime with K, then in the evening with M as part of our regular Friday night. The shop is located on the Hay Street Mall, next to the Electronics Boutique, where the old Lincraft shop used to be, and directly opposite the David Jones. Typically I forgot to take any pictures, so if you want a look, have a squiz at Skribe’s review.
The new Borders is being touted as “Perth’s biggest choice of Books, Music, Movies and Magazines” (according to the pdf invitation I received). It has two floors, with fiction, travel, magazines and stationery on the Hay Street Mall entrance level, and children’s books, lots of non-fiction, and audiovisual stuff downstairs. I don’t know exactly how much stock it has and exactly how it will compare with Perth’s other bookshops - I’ll have to do little comparisons over the next few months. (I didn’t find it that wonderful, mainly because of my personal yardstick and all-time favourite, Kinokuniya on Orchard Road, Singapore. Nothing matches that shop. Nothing.)
There is a coffee shop located in the middle of the shop, in the entrance level, a Gloria Jean’s Coffees. I’m disappointed - mainly because I have fond memories of the restaurant attached to the Singaporean Borders, which served some delicious food (a nice range of very tasty pasta dishes - we liked it so much M and I ate there not once, but twice!). Gloria Jean’s has never done much for me - probably because I am not a coffee drinker and tend to get peeved by the way shops treat tea (dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot water - ho hum, I can do that at home, thanks). I don’t know what offerings the Borders one has on its menu - will have to take a closer look - but if it’s like any other Gloria Jean’s it will have lots of cakes and sweet things, which don’t hold any particular appeal to me at all.
M remarked, as we were leaving, that while browsing in the shop, he forgot he was in Perth. I think I know what he means. The shop felt the same as the shop in Singapore. Even the labels for their “3-for-2″ promotion were exactly the same as the labels we saw in Singapore. Until now Borders has always been an overseas/interstate phenomenon for us - Perth has its Angus and Robertsons and Dymocks bookshops, thank you very much. (Is Perth the last city in Australia to get a Borders?) I like our small independent bookshops; I like the fact that White Dwarf, Fantastic Planet, Oxford St Books (Leederville) and Planet Books (Mt Lawley) all feel individual and unique.
What impact will it have on existing Perth bookshops? I don’t know, but I did notice that Angus and Robertsons was having a 20% off ALL BOOKS sale this week. There were quite a few people wandering around the shop, no doubt because it is new. The new shop’s opening hours are interesting - 9am to 11pm everyday! - I wonder how long they will keep those hours, given that the city of Perth empties out after around 5pm most days. Time will tell.
Categories: bookshop, Borders, Perth, WesternAustralia
