For more than thirty years, the Russell bookselling family has been an integral part of Victoria’s literary community, continuing the legacy of the original Russell Books which opened in Montreal in 1961. In 2019, the bookstore moved to a new location on Fort Street where it has expanded to a two-floor, 18,000 square feet space that sells books, magazines, related items, and hosts readings and other literary events.
Read Local BC had the opportunity to talk to Russell Books’ owners and managers Andrea and Jordan Minter, and store manager Zoe Dickinson. The passion and drive is palpable as they talk about connecting books to booklovers, honouring business traditions while adopting promising emerging trends, and maintaining the vibrancy of the BC bookselling scene through their genuine love of books and their keen business sense.
Read Local BC: You are one of Canada’s largest independent bookstores. What kind of selection can the community expect to find at Russell Books?
Russell Books: The beautiful thing about Russell Books is that you genuinely never know what you might find. Any book that has ever been published might come through our doors on any given day: frontlist, backlist, out-of-print, antiquarian, or new release. This is why we never get bored! We go from pre-ordering copies of the latest Book-Tok obsession to shelving a copy of Leaves of Grass that Walt Whitman signed 150 years ago. We may not have every book at every moment, but as a relatively large bookstore we do have space for a huge variety. And if we don’t have it at the time, we always have our request list—right now we’ve got a database of about 40,000 customer requests that we’re constantly checking against our incoming stock. We love being able to call someone and let them know that the book they asked for last month, or in some cases a decade ago, has finally come in. Everything comes through our Book Trade Counter eventually.
How does your bookselling team approach the curation of this selection?
RB: The word “curation” might be a misnomer in our case! We do order some books in specifically—things we have a high demand for and can’t keep on the shelves used. However, the vast majority of our stock comes from our local community via our Book Trade Counter. Victoria is a town of book lovers, and that’s reflected in the amazing finds that come through every day. Our book buyers do an incredible job of sorting through a huge variety of books and book-like objects. In a way, we see it as our mission to find every book, no matter how weird or unusual, a new home. If it’s in salable condition, we’ll probably add it to our collection!
We love being able to call someone and let them know that the book they asked for last month, or in some cases a decade ago, has finally come in. Everything comes through our Book Trade Counter eventually.
Speaking of curation, does one person manage your Instagram account, or is it a group effort? How do you decide what content you share? I especially enjoy your Instagram feed with its weekly “fursday” features.
RB: It’s a group effort! Georgia, our social media manager, is the one who puts it all together but the content comes from a bunch of different people on any given day. We have several employees whose job includes taking “fursday” photos of cute animal visitors to Russell Books—a very important task! We want our presence online to be authentic and reflect our experience at the store. Honestly, a lot of the time we’re running around trying to get stuff done, and barely remember to pause and snap a picture to send Georgia’s way. Georgia does a great job of compiling it all and telling our story, thank goodness!
Your entire team at Russell Books is doing the interview together; it looks like teamwork is something that you take to heart and what keeps the bookstore going. Can you talk about how you all came together?
RB: Not quite the entire team, to be fair! We’ve got over 40 employees, including students and part-timers, so that would be a bit impractical. We definitely are very team-oriented, though! We are a family. So many incredible people have chosen to work here over the years, and each one brings a unique set of talents that enriches the whole store. We’ve got a very diverse team: everyone from high school students starting their first job, to travellers here on work visas, to retirees who bring a wealth of life experience. When it comes to choosing Russell Bookers, the number one thing we look for is personality. Is this someone we want to spend time with? Are they a nice person? Skills can be taught, but more importantly we need people who will fit into our quirky little community.
What is everyone’s favourite part of the job?
RB: During our job interviews we always ask people “what’s your favourite book?” which is kind of a trick question because who can pick only one? This question feels almost as impossible!
Zoe Dickinson: And I’m sure it’s different for everyone… but for me I guess it’s the sheer variety. The variety of books and the variety of people I encounter. Every day is different, and there’s always something new and interesting. Or old and interesting!
It’s been five years since you relocated to your new location on Fort St. How does this new address compare to the previous one? Do you have plans for another record-breaking book tower?
RB: Wow, has it already been five years? We didn’t move far—just across the street—but the impact has been huge. The new space is a lot more accessible, larger, and airier. It seems prosaic but I think what’s made the biggest difference is the elevator. For one thing, if you think back to our old space and those stairs up to the top floor: can you fathom that every single book was carried up those stairs by a Russell Booker? In any given week we’d carry literal tonnes of books up three flights of stairs. But more importantly, the elevator means that all of our stock can be browsed by everyone regardless of their mobility. That has also allowed us to hire more diversely, whereas at the old store we always had to ask that question, “how do you feel about heavy lifting?”
We don’t currently have any more record-breaking plans in the works. We’re just happy to be settling in after what turned out to be quite a wild ride over the last five years! We’re just now starting to really fill this new space. The more books we cram in, the more it feels like home!
I don’t think it’s a question of [brick-and-mortar store] “versus” [online store]. To survive as an indie these days, you need to be able to do both. That’s how to build resilience into your business—the ability to adapt to whatever comes next.
Besides selling books, how else do you participate in Victoria’s literary community?
RB: Victoria is such a literary town! What a great place to be a bookstore, and to be a writer! That literary community is our lifeblood. We’re home to the monthly meetings of the Victoria Writers Society, as well as weekly poetry readings thanks to one of Canada’s longest-running reading series, Planet Earth Poetry. We are a sponsor of the Victoria Book Prizes, and we even got to be the official booksellers at their awards ceremony this year, which was a blast.
ZD: Something else we do which isn’t as flashy but I think makes a huge difference to indie authors is our consignment program. Before we moved, our space was just too chaotic to allow us to keep track of that type of program, but now we’ve been able to get hundreds of local authors’ books onto our shelves on consignment. As an author myself, I know that ultimately what you want most is to put your book into the hands of people who will read it. The consignment program is one way we can help make that happen.
Community engagement seems to be a top priority for you. Can you talk about how you’ve carried this philosophy forward through the generations and how it impacts your vision for the future of the store?
RB: Community engagement isn’t something we have deliberately plotted but as active members of the community it is natural to want to participate whether that is by hosting a reading by a local author, showing up at a local event, or donating for a community fundraiser. As our business has grown, thanks to community support, we have been able to give back more. With the expansion of our store we are able to host not only larger events but offer our space to more diverse groups. We have even used our store for a wedding! We also have a growing relationship with local schools offering custom curated school fairs and we have a great donation program that supports local literacy. If we look to the future of our business we’re really thinking about our purpose and how Russell Books can enhance the lives of our staff and our customers. We want this store to grow into an organization that can be at the heart of the community.
“What’s your favourite book?” is kind of a trick question because who can pick only one?
What’s a reason to support an independent bookstore that may not occur to the average customer?
RB: Big, multinational corporations are very good at hiding the cost of their convenience. The environmental cost and the human cost. Shopping local isn’t just supporting the owners of a particular business, or even their employees. It’s supporting the fabric of your town, wherever it is that you live. It’s about investing in businesses that are invested in YOUR community.
The conversation around reading and books is always shifting. “Print is dead” used to be an edgy catchphrase, but now the rise of #BookTok is making reading as popular as ever. How do the changing cultural attitudes towards reading affect Russell Books, and the bookselling industry as a whole?
RB: We’ve been at this for over 60 years. In all that time, I don’t think we’ve ever had any doubt that the readers are out there. Prevailing attitudes may change, but the core group of nerdy booklovers has always been there, and we hope always will be. That being said, it’s wonderful to see another generation discover books, get excited about reading, and find their people. One thing I [Zoe Dickinson] love about BookTok is its celebration of the book as an object. Books are beautiful things that have the potential to remain in peoples’ lives for generations – centuries, even! As used booksellers we have a strong sense of how books come in and out of many different peoples’ lives during their existence. That appreciation for the beauty of physical books as well as the stories inside is something we’re so happy to see coming to the fore.
What do you think are the most pressing issues for booksellers right now, as we approach 2025?
RB: There are so many challenges to running a brick-and-mortar retail store. It is hard to say what will be the biggest concern in the new year for us, but we have always stood by exceptional customer service, an extensive selection of ever-changing stock, and offering our best pricing as the key to attracting and maintaining our customers. This has served us well throughout the years but of course we need to keep up with the times. Having knowledgeable and engaged staff who are always coming up with new ways to reach customers is a key component to help us continue to grow and not only find but create more readers.
If you could host one author, living or dead, for an event at your bookstore, who would it be?
RB: That is a really tough one! There are so many good options! This is going to sound like an odd choice but I’ve always wanted to have an event with David Arora. His book All That the Rain Promises, and More…: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms is one of our all-time best sellers at the store. We have literally sold thousands of this little pocket mushroom guide. David seems like such a hilarious and fun person—he’s shown grinning on the cover of this book holding a big mushroom in one hand and a trumpet in the other. Something about this photo makes me think, this guy would be fun to spend time with! Funnily enough, this is a recurring idea that has popped into my mind on and off for the last decade, every time I shelve All That the Rain Promises. Victorians love mushrooms, and I think we’d get a great turnout for a David Arora event! Maybe he could even play the trumpet for us! So hey, David, if you’re reading this—any chance you want to visit Victoria, BC?
Shopping local isn’t just supporting the owners of a particular business, or even their employees. It’s supporting the fabric of your town, wherever it is that you live.
What is your favourite bookselling story that happened at your store?
RB: This is another one of those “too many to choose from” questions! There have been so many amazing moments over the years. Here is one recent favourite. We had a long-time customer with an extensive library and also a long list of hard-to-find items on our customer request list. He passed away some time ago, but we’ve been charmed to see his wife still coming in to pick up his request list items whenever they come in. She told us that since he passed, she has been working her way through reading his entire collection as a way of maintaining that bond and feeling close to him. Whenever we call her about a used book that he was on our list for, she considers it a recommendation from her late husband! This is just so heartwarming for us as booksellers. It speaks to the role that books can play not only during one’s lifetime but after. What those books meant to her husband, and now what they mean to her, and how these physical objects can contain so much more than just text on a page. That right there is a compelling argument for the physical book! Of course, sometimes dealing with a large collection left behind can be challenging (and we can help with that too; we often do house calls for big estates) but, on the other hand, how magical to still have those same pages that a loved one touched, their notes in the margins, and even in this case their ongoing wish list!
Back when the pandemic struck, book shoppers turned to buying their books online. Now, with the Canada Post strike, some booksellers are once again facing restrictions when it comes to getting books to their customers. Do you have any reflections on the pros and cons of brick-and-mortar versus online stores?
RB: We were early adopters of online bookselling—one of the first sellers working with AbeBooks, for example. At the same time, we’ve always been brick-and-mortar first and foremost. Luckily, when the pandemic hit we had just finished a huge cataloguing project that was running alongside our move, and had a big portion of our stock available to browse online. Now with the postal strike, we’re leaning more on local, in-person customers and we’re so thankful for that community. All of this to say, I don’t think it’s a question of “versus.” To survive as an indie these days, you need to be able to do both. That’s how to build resilience into your business—the ability to adapt to whatever comes next.
If you could relaunch an old book at Russell Books (like a movie theatre re-releasing a classic), what book would it be and what kind of relaunch party would you plan?
RB: That’s really funny actually, because we’re in the midst of planning a series of “Best of Backlist” events for 2025! These events will celebrate local authors who may not have a new book out right this second but remain a big inspiration in the local literary scene. We’re still figuring it out, but so far we’ve been talking about inviting folks like Michael Christie (author of Greenwood), or Esi Edugyan (author of Washington Black and Half Blood Blues). We’re lucky that Victoria is home to so many stellar, award-winning authors!