Is it a workshop? No, it's a bookshop. Welcome to Dead Souls in Dunedin
Dean Havard, owner of Dunedins Dead Souls Bookshop, does his best to try to detail his place of work. Describe the space: Dead Souls Bookshop is located in an old Edwardian four-storey building on Princes St, Dunedin. It shares the street level with a barber and has flats above and below. The shop is named after a satirical novel by Russian author Nikolai Gogol. The space is difficult to describe. Its like a workshop with type drawers, book presses and printing bits and pieces that has been overtaken by a bookshop, overgrown by an ever-growing forest of books and bookcases with an upper canopy of pulp fiction covers on the ceiling and peopled by various oddments and bookends and figurines which I use as characters for hand-printed woodblock bookmarks for the bookshop. Originally occupied by a ships chandler and sail makers, over the years the space has belonged to many businesses including publishers, solicitors and an art gallery. Ive been here just over four years, although a lot of people presume the shop has been around forever. READ MORE: * Loft living: How to make the most out of your attic space * After 20 years of owning their home, this couple embarked on a revamp * Meet the maker: Light designer Bridie-Rose O'Leary makes everyday items glow What inspires you about this space? I like how most people respond to the space, as if it is vaguely familiar and surprising, not exactly how a bookshop should look, but just how a bookshop might be like if you went about creating one in your mind from disparate notions. What is your role? I am the owner well me and the bank. Ive been passionate about books and the book trade: reading, buying, trading and hand-craft publishing for about 20 years. Having a bookshop seemed like a good fit with the small press publishing Id been undertaking with Kilmog Press since 2006. Hand-crafting activities can be done while people browse, whether Im publishing a book of poetry or carving woodblock designs for bookmarks or bookshop posters.