Editorial: Refreshing win for print

Louise and Gareth Ward, owners of Wardini Books, won the best retailer section of the inaugural Havelock North Business Awards. Photo / Warren Buckland

A friend admitted a few months back to being addicted to the growing genre of gritty TV drama series.

The likes of Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, The Killing, Orange is the New Black and House of Cards.

So great are they, he claimed they're the "new literature".

It underscores the eternal standoff between popular and high culture. Although some would argue the quality of the new TV genre has blurred those lines. So, too, has the digital medium of the e-reader, where you're both viewing and reading.

Either way, I don't necessarily agree with his claim, at least not yet.

As a child from a large family, pleas for icecreams or toys during shopping trips were rarely listened to.

However, my father would always say yes to books, wise old sage.

Perhaps that's why bookshops remain a personal sanctuary.

And perhaps that's also why, in the digital age, it was heartening to see Wardini Books' win the My Favourite Village Retailer category by the public at the first Havelock North Business Association Awards this week.

More than 100 businesses were represented at the inaugural event at Black Barn Vineyards.

Owners Gareth and Louise Ward should be congratulated in their success in what's regarded by many now as an old school industry, or an old school medium.

From where I'm standing, if escapism is your game, TV drama has nothing on books.

New literature? I prefer the old literature.

In fact the only thing that beats a bookshop for nostalgia, is a second-hand bookshop.