Books are my business: Head of books at Eason Lynda Laffan

Lynda Laffan: 'I’ve been at Eason about four years. I have been in and out between bookselling and publishing, and I love both sides.'

Lynda Laffan is head of books at Eason, the Irish bookstore chain. She lives in Donabate, Co Dublin.

How did you get into publishing?

I have a master’s in art history from UCD and I had great plans to conserve fabulous buildings in Italy but life takes funny twists and turns, which is great, and here I am. 

I started in publishing around 22 years ago.

I had been off in Australia trying to find myself, and I love books so much, I thought, that’s it, I’m going to go and see if I can work doing something that I really love.

When I came back, I sent my CV to every single publisher in Ireland. I got a job with Poolbeg, which was a brilliant place to work, and I was there for five or six years. 

I went from there to a book wholesaler based in the UK, which wanted to break into Ireland. 

I was their bookseller over here; we were selling into supermarkets, newsagents, places that weren’t traditional bookshops, it was great experience.

After that, I went into children’s publishing with a company called Igloo Books. Then it was back to book wholesaling again, and now I’m here. 

I’ve been at Eason about four years. I have been in and out between bookselling and publishing, and I love both sides.

What does your role involve?

In a nutshell, I oversee the day-to-day running of the books category. We have two categories in the stores — book and non-book, which is everything else. 

I look after the books side, and that’s all the buying, everything that we have in our range.

We collaborate on all our promotions. We have a really brilliant team that makes sure we have the best books, and the best offers for our customers. 

That shows from store to store and has done for a long time. It’s down to all the hard work from a big team.

I’m based here in our head office in Swords, and I’m out and about a couple of times a week, checking in with our retail colleagues. 

We have meetings with the teams most days, checking where everybody is at. 

There are meetings with our colleagues in marketing, e-commerce, our supply chain, making sure that we’re all on the same page. 

We also have a lot of publisher meetings, seeing all the new books, which is the best.

What do you like most about it?

I love the people. Working in the book trade is brilliant, there’s a common grá for books and there’s not much in the way of rivalry. 

Being able to meet the authors and creators is fantastic, getting the inside track on where they get their ideas and all of that. It’s a real privilege.

I love the new release meetings, particularly at the moment, as we are seeing what all the big releases are going to be for Christmas. I just love the anticipation.

What do you like least about it?

There’s not much to complain about in this job. 

One thing is a slow publishing month where the books aren’t as strong as they could be; that can be disappointing for us, because we want to be able to give our customers something new every month.

But the worst thing is when we really love a book but it doesn’t capture the the readers’ imagination the way it has captured ours. That can be a bit disheartening.

Three desert island books

My favourite book of all time is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, it is so heartbreaking, but it’s also about the joy and the escape that can be found in books, which resonated with me. 

I have spent my life losing myself in books and I still do.

The next one is The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, another book-related one which has stayed with me. 

It is about the love of libraries, in this case, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and how you don’t choose your path in life, it chooses you. 

And again, I think that’s how I ended up in books myself — it chose me in the end.

The last one is more recent — The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, which I loved. The way it looks at how you can live with people and not know them, it’s unbelievably good. 

I was rooting for all the four main characters, particularly the little fella, PJ. And that ending, oh my God, it was brilliant.

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