Nicholas Hoare stands for taste and style

“It is theatre,” says Nicholas Hoare, contemplating his store. “I’m the first to acknowledge it. But we try to put on a good show.”

“It’s like a British country-house library, translated into a book store,” notes David McDerby, the store’s manager. McDerby is a recent arrival at Greene Avenue, having previously managed the downtown branch in Ogilvy’s. But he already had hands-on experience here: “Nicholas and I design all of our stores together,” he says. “We know every centimetre of every shelf intimately.”

“David’s really good at three-and-a-half-inch baseboards,” confirms Hoare.

The Edinburgh-born Hoare comes from a book and banking family, but never considered a career in books during a youth split between Canada and Britain. It was only after settling in Montreal following Expo 67 that Hoare began working in Ogilvy’s book department, under the legendary Westmounter Barbara Gahan, “who was as Irish as anyone you ever met,” recalls Hoare with a smile. Her sensitivity to books made an impression on both Hoare and his colleague in arms, McDerby. “It was our home,” says Hoare of Ogilvy’s.

Hoare went on to create a book wholesaling business, then to open the Avenue Bookshop, which led in turn to his current chain of stores in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto; McDerby remained at Ogilvy’s, managing the book department after Barabara Gahan retired..

In 1988, Hoare took over the rights to sell books in Ogilvy’s, with McDerby managing the operation. “Over a period of time, Ogilvy’s had become more a fashion store than a a department store,” reflects Hoare. This slow change led to his decision to unite the downtown branch with his flagship Greene Avenue store. “We saw this as a golden opportunity, not a challenge at all,” he says. “It was the smoothest of moves.”

“What the closing did was allow us to combine the stock of the two shops,” observes McDerby, whose old customers have largely followed him from downtown. “Our Ogilvy alumni are still very much around,” he says — while regulars at Greene Avenue have responded well to the recent changes: “I think they recognize the broader range, the greater variety.”

“Greene Avenue now has French-Canadian customers as well as our traditional English ones, in a way we never had before,” observes Hoare. “The cross-pollination has had a very salutary effect, and books we couldn’t sell a year ago now turn over nicely.”

This validates Hoare’s overall optimism about his industry. “I’m very positive about the book business,” he says. “More people are reading. There’s plenty of room for independents, provided they are fiercely so. The failure rate for us is only 8 per cent, as compared to the national average of 28, so we sell 92 books out of 100.”

The key, of course, is to be selective, thereby maintaining the character of the store. Says Hoare: “If the book doesn’t stand out, then we don’t want it. At any given time, we have 3 out of 10 of the New York Times bestsellers at the most. The rest we don’t stock.

“That’s not arrogance, that’s style.”