Dec. 2, 2008 — The Dockside Bookshop in Havensight Mall is one of the island's quietest treasures. Since 1978, the shop has been the islands' premier destination for those inclined to seek wisdom, entertainment or how to build a better mousetrap from between the covers of a book.
The recently remodeled bookshop wasn't really announced — it was more a matter of folks wandering in and stopping in their tracks at the venerable shop's gussied-up appearance. What you'd call a "really quiet opening."
Perhaps Jane Sheen, a customer since the shop was located around the corner in 1978, expresses it best: "It's made a wonderful book store even better, literally. It's beautiful."
Walking in the door, you first notice the improved lighting before your eyes fall on the 400-square-foot addition, beckoning with its shiny wooden floors. The wide spaces allow one to browse comfortably or, if you're a kid, plunk down in one of the beanbag chairs in the enlarged children's section.
Owner Jonathan Gjessing, a tall, bespectacled man with an unassuming demeanor, shares a bit of the shop's history in his upstairs office, which now has more privacy, with the former upstairs books moved to the first floor.
It's a family business. Gjessing acquired the shop from his father, noted environmentalist and architect Fred Gjessing, in 1978, and now owns it in partnership with his mother, Helen Gjessing.
"I'd just returned from college," Gjessing says. "I had a degree in archeology, but (President) Reagan had pulled the funding for government programs, and there wasn't a lot of opportunity."
He smiles.
"I sort of morphed into this," Gjessing says. "It wasn't my career plan, but I like to read, and I learned on the job."
He remembers in the early 1980s before the West Indian Co. began converting the warehouses into the present Havensight Mall, "it was a very quiet neighborhood."
"We moved to this location in about 1982," he says.
The inventory at any one time, fluctuates between 10,000 and 20,000 titles.
"If we had all we wanted, we could fill the entire mall," Gjessing says.
His inventory hasn't grown that much as yet with the new floor space.
"We have wider aisles now, so you aren't bumping each other in the ribs," he says.
Dockside's customers come from different walks of life.
"The locals, of course, are the biggest percentage of customers," Gjessing says. Another group, which would seem unlikely at first glance, make up the biggest percent of cruise-ship sales.
"About 5 percent are the crews," he says. "These people come from the poorest parts of the world — a lot are from the Philippines, Romania — and they are always trying to improve themselves. They buy texts on learning English, on crafts, the how-to books, even on how to become a chef."
Romance novels, he says, are the biggest sellers.
"They are always popular," Gjessing says. "After that, it's other fiction. Biographies sell now, diet fads always sell, along with the GED and STAT test instruction books, which are a huge business."
Dockside also stocks plenty of books with a regional flavor.
"We likely have the biggest West Indian inventory available," Gjessing says. He is planning a website that will feature that inventory.
Gjessing likely holds a private-sector record for retaining his employees, some of whom have been with him for decades. The faces are as familiar as the cover of a well-loved book. Kathy Schlesinger, with her characteristic ponytail, began in 1987; John McKevitt, also sporting a ponytail, started in 1991; petite Nancy Lee started in 1993; Genio Etienne, with the wide smile, has been there more than a decade; and Althelia Johnson started in 1992.
Gjessing says he has no idea how he's managed to keep his staff of 11, some of whom are short-timers of only five or six years.
"I'm not sure what I do," he says, looking genuinely puzzled. "I didn't attend Harvard Business School. And I've never taken a business-management course."
Perhaps that's the secret.
"He is very fair, very nice — that's one reason I stay," says Schlesinger, the assistant manager. She came to work in 1987, planning to stay for "a couple months" — which have extended a couple of decades.
"I have a wide range of interests, and I get to explore them here," she says. "I like to connect a book with a reader, have a real connection, the bricks and mortar. I can see a book, know the person, and say, 'I love this; you'll love it, too.'"
The upstairs at Dockside will now be used for book signings, Schlesinger says.
"Before, it was so crowded," she says. "Now the author will have a lectern, and we'll have chairs."
The first book signing in the new digs is local author and playwright Eddie Donahue's Black Breeding Machines from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 13. Click here for a description of the book.
Back Talk Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.
