FINAL CHAPTER
Leah May fears well-known book exchange Nobbys Beach Books will disappear unless a new owner can be found.
IT’ HAS spent 47 years nestled in its cosy reading nook, but 2018 could be the final chapter for well-known second-hand book exchange Nobbys Beach Books unless it can find a new owner.
English teacher Leah May and her family bought the store, sandwiched between a beauty shop and bakery on the Gold Coast Highway, about eight years ago.
A street back from the beach, the little idyllic store came with shelves full of books and generations of customers — regulars who’d come in year after year to devour stories and enjoy a chat.
“I decided to have a few years off teaching, but I didn’t want just any bookshop, I wanted this bookshop,” said Ms May, who is head of English at Hillcrest Christian College.
The family, including husband John and their kids Juliet, 16, and Heith, 25, have all taken turns working in the store over the years, setting aside titles to recommend to the regulars and giving them a comfy couch to escape into their pages.
But the shop has never been a massive money-spinner, and Ms May returned to her full-time teaching job four years ago. Mr May also works full-time, and the pair no longer have the time the business needs to keep the pages turning.
The family is selling it for $65,000 — the cost of the stock and fittings — and the space has a three-year lease with a three-year option.
“All the owners have stuck it out for 10 years or more — it’s really sad, we don’t want to be the people who have to close it,” Ms May said.
“(But) this is the sort of business that needs an owner-occupier.
“I’m a massive reader, I grew up surrounded by books and I think second-hand bookshops hold a special appeal for people.”
In recent years, Ms May has added vintage homewares and new books — not new releases, but new copies of classics — to fulfil demand for all-time favourites. To Kill a Mockingbird flies off the shelves — as does anything by Tim Winton.
“People come in saying `my grandparents used to bring me here and now I bring my own kids here’,” she said.
“There are people who come in every year on their holidays. We just would really like someone to take it over and keep it going.”
Ms May said retail was challenging across the Gold Coast and the loss of Easter trade in the shadow of the Commonwealth Games had been a clincher.
“It’s never going to be a million-dollar business — it’s a lifestyle choice, a vocation, you’ve got to love it,” she said.
The store has stopped taking donations and ceased exchanging books — instead discounting them for sale and farewelling them forever.
If a new owner isn’t found, Nobby Beach Books will follow another second-hand favourite, Broadbeach Books, into the history books.
That book exchange, in Niecon Plaza, closed down about a month ago, taking its “gently used books” with it.
Second-hand bookworms have a dwindling handful of places to quench their word thirst — Burleigh Heads has Big B Books and the Village Book Exchange, while Coolangatta has Bundle O’Books on Griffith St.
Ms May said although online retail was putting the industry under pressure, stores like hers had huge potential for someone with the time and passion to make it work.
“I think there’s been a massive swing back to books and people who read will read the walls,” she said.
“It’s still got so much potential — a new owner could put coffee in — but all these sort of things take time.
“There are so many things you could do, it’s in a position where it needs a shake-up.”