What do you do when you’re 84 and own Canada’s most beautiful bookstore? And one that is thriving — no mean feat these days.

Sell it? You could. Close it? You could do that, too.

But if you’re Jim Munro, who for 50 years has run Munro’s Books in Victoria, B. C., you do something exceptional: you give the business to four of your staff.

Lawyers and accountants have told him he’s nuts. Crazy generous.

Munro sees it differently. “Without them there, the business isn’t worth anything. They are like an extended family.”

Munro has three daughters with ex-wife Alice Munro, who last year won the Nobel Prize in Literature. “We all totally agree that the store should go to the staff, that we hold the building and that we want the Munro name to continue,” he says.

Munro owns the granite-clad, neo-classical-style former bank on Victoria’s Government St., in the heart of downtown. With its hanging flower baskets, heritage buildings, tea and tobacconist shops, the strip has a ye olde English atmosphere that tourists love. The bookstore is a short stroll from where cruise ships dock in Victoria’s harbour.

“The building is emblematic of Jim’s business,” says David Kent, president and CEO of HarperCollins Canada. “It’s solid and beautiful.”

With an inventory of some 30,000 books, computers and all the fittings of a bookstore, Munro estimates the value of his gift is around $1 million.

The building, with 6,000 square feet of retail space, marble floors and 24 foot coffered ceilings, is a destination in itself. The walls are hung with tapestries by Munro’s textile artist wife, Carole Sabiston. Mystery writer P.D. James was so taken with them, she commissioned one for her house in England. Book lovers can find classics such as Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich , obscure local histories, poetry and Stephen King’s latest blockbuster.

Munro’s staff consists of hard-core, literate readers who can always help a baffled customer who has forgotten the title and the author of a recommended book.

“People like to go to the store just for the experience of being in the store,” says Howard White, publisher of Douglas & McIntyre. “It’s like a shrine to books. He’s the high priest.

“He believes in literature and culture and all the good things.”

Munro will still collect rent, but at below market rate.

“I don’t need it. I have my RRSPs and so on. Why not? I want them to prosper.”

The four staffers who take over when Munro retires on Sept. 1 have decades of experience. At 45, Jessica Walker, who will hold the majority share, is the newbie. “I’m the kid. I’ve only been here 14 years.”

Though the idea of passing the store on to staff had been discussed generally, Walker and the others felt “momentary shock” when Munro made the decision.”

“But it certainly made sense,” says Walker, the daughter of a book sales rep who as a child went on the road with her mother.

“The four people Jim selected already work really well with each other and our talents and responsibilities complement each other.

“It’s a tremendous gift.”

Oakville raised, Munro went to what was then called the University of Western Ontario and after graduating worked for Eaton’s in Vancouver. He opened Munro’s in Victoria in 1963 in a retail strip close to theatres, so he could catch moviegoers on their way home. Alice Munro worked there in the early years, as did a roster of memorably beautiful students. He was no fool.

He moved the store a few times before ending up in 1984 in the bank building he bought for $360,000.

Famous visitors, including John Cleese and Ian McKellen, shopped there. Staff swooned discreetly over Colin Firth, less so for Leonard Cohen. Novelist Vikram Seth came to Munro’s. “Oh, we had a great time with him,” Munro says. “We took him swimming to the Sooke Potholes.” Others who’ve stopped by include Jonathan Raban, Paul Theroux, Margaret Drabble and Ian McEwan. “He came to the house. He wasn’t famous then.”

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Carol Shields lived down the street, and Munro and his second wife were attentive to her through her illness.

Munro is community-minded and personable, and he guided his staff with a gentle hand, though he battled it out with publishers who didn’t give the same deals to independent booksellers as to the giant chains. Douglas & McIntyre publisher White says Munro helped build and sustain regional culture. Earlier this month Munro was awarded the Order of Canada.

Dave Hill worked at Munro’s for nearly 40 years and then retired as manager to study Latin and play in a band. His wife, Carol Mentha, another longtime employee, will be one of the four new owners.

Hill says he’s not aware of any rancour among the 18 or so other employees. “Most staff are newer and younger. Even people who had been there a long time were likely not interested in that kind of responsibility. Most people saw those as logical choices.”

The ’80s were golden years for the business, recalls Hill. The arrival of Chapters just around the corner in the mid-’90s “was a heavy hit. I guess we were the target. It was three years before we clawed ourselves up, but I guess it smartened us up.”

Then came the second blow: Amazon and bargain-priced online bookselling.

Today, about 10 per cent of books purchased in Canada are from independent bookstores such as Munro’s. About 25 per cent are bought online, and those sales appear to have plateaued, says Noah Genner, CEO and president of BookNet Canada.

Munro himself has never used an e-reader. About 17 per cent of books sold are now in electronic format, and those sales, too, have plateaued, according to Genner.

Munro’s bestselling books have invariably been those written by Alice Munro.

Last year, Jim Munro marked the store’s 50th anniversary with a black-and-white themed party at his Tudor-style house. He lives in the Rockland area, an old, elegant Victoria neighbourhood. There’s a statue of Voltaire in the garden. The invitation was the store’s unofficial motto, “tactile pleasures of the physical book.”

Five years earlier, for the 45th anniversary, guests dressed up as their favourite literary characters. Soon-to-be owner Walker and her husband came as Lady and Lord Macbeth. Munro came as aged Prospero from The Tempest . He quoted a line or two: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on . . . ” thinking about the successful and pleasant life he’d made selling books.

And then this one, he recalls, really hit home: “Our revels now are ended. That really hit home with me. I felt the time was coming. Soon.

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