"Beware of looking for goals, look for a way of life, decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN the way of life."
That quote by Hunter S. Thompson are words to live by for the new owner of Patrick's Bookshop in Whanganui. Daniel West has had a lifelong love of books, and now it has become his job.
"I remember when I was living here 20 years ago," he said. "On my lunch breaks I used to go up to Guyton St, there was a secondhand bookshop there and that's what I would do on my lunch breaks."
Returning to his hometown and dividing his time between kids, a large lifestyle block and the bookshop is a far cry from West's previous two decades working in television. But with decent internet and remote work now the norm, it means he can enjoy the best of both worlds.
"The job I left at the ABC has come a-knocking to ask me to work remotely from here, for them over there. I thought I had walked away from all of that, and I thought 'no that's fine'.