Books Are My Business: Joanne Hunter, Books at One

"We want to bring people in and get them talking and reading, as well as doing things like combatting loneliness and creating excitement around books."

Sat, 24 Jun, 2023 - 20:00

Marjorie Brennan

Joanne Hunter, from Kildorrery, Co Cork is general manager of Books At One, a social enterprise and collective of community bookshops, founded by Mary Ruddy and Cork native Vincent Murphy.

Books at One originally opened in Louisburgh, Co Mayo, and now also has shops in Letterfrack, Co Galway, and Meath St in the Liberties in Dublin.

How did you get involved in Books At One?

I grew up in Listowel in Kerry, where being interested in books was just very natural, we assumed that everybody was the same.

My mother and John B Keane were cousins and Bryan MacMahon lived around the corner from us.

I always loved books but my life took a different direction and I actually trained as an accountant.

Then I worked in different jobs, in the food industry and the leisure industry.

I read about the original Books At One in Louisburgh, in Mayo, back in 2017.

I was after having a back operation so I had been out of action for a couple of months, and I had gone back into reading in a big way.

It really saved me for those three months when I couldn’t leave the house.

When I read about Books At One, I thought it was an inspired idea and I needed to find out more about it.

So that was on December 23, 2017, and by January 6, I had managed to get myself a meeting with the Books At One people, and dragged my husband up to Mayo straight after Christmas to see the shop there.

They wanted more people to become involved and get more community bookshops opened. I thought this would be something I could do in my spare time, along with my day job and my family but it kind of ballooned.

Having the business background and that love of books, I stepped into the role of general manager, it just happened really naturally.

Can you tell me more about Books at One and your role?

We are a social enterprise. Our purpose is to get everybody reading and bring people together through books.

That’s why our bookshops are in places that you’re not going to find a normal commercial, profit-driven bookshop.

We want to bring people in and get them talking and reading, as well as doing things like combatting loneliness and creating excitement around books.

The idea is that the shops are owned really by their own community and run by their local managers.

What I do is oversight really, creating the connections between the shops so we can all share our information.

Another part of my job is fundraising, because we’re a not-for-profit and we’re not yet at the stage where we’re making enough money to pay the wages and pay the bills.

What do you like most about your job?

Nothing beats actually being in the shops and chatting to the people who come in and out. I love it when people come in and they recommend books to us.

We also have a Fighting Words workshop in the Dublin shop on Wednesday afternoon for the local kids, when they sit down and write their stories and you have all this crazy, imaginative stuff flying around the shop, that’s fantastic.

What do you like least?

When it comes to travelling, I’m not a great driver. I was caught in a snowstorm on my way to Louisburgh in 2019. I’ll never forget that.

That was my worst day’s work ever — I actually didn’t get there, I had to stop midway. Another time, a storm on the Atlantic broke a window in the house I was in.

So I think weather-related issues in the west of Ireland in the winter would be the only thing I don’t like.

Three book recommendations?

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy have been the standout books for me in the last year — I’ve been pushing them on everybody.

I’m reading The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, that I found in the Letterfrack shop.

I knew all about her Moomin books but I had never come across this one. Often, when I’m in the shops, I’m like, OK, I’ve read enough grim stuff, give me something nice and gentle.

So I’m reading that and the weather is perfect for it at the moment. The thing about bookselling is no matter how much you know or how many books you’ve read, there’s thousands of others just waiting.