BY DANIEL CULLEN
A new independent bookshop is opening its doors in Dunvegan this Saturday, bringing books, coffee and a community events space to north-west Skye.
Waystone Books, located on the Kilmuir road in Dunvegan, will have its official soft launch on Saturday 21st February, with a larger celebration planned for the following weekend. The shop will sell books alongside takeaway coffee, as well as cards, maps and craft items.
The Free Press spoke to the team behind the new shop, who explained that from the outset, Waystone is intended to be more than a place to simply buy books.
The three company directors behind Waystone are Caroline Bruns, Katy Lawrence and Louis Barabbas, who all live locally.
Caroline and Louis are members of the Dunvegan fire crew, while Katy works locally with Highland Climate Hub, Skye Beach Cleans and Dunvegan Community Trust.
“We have all wanted to run a bookshop pretty much since we were children,” said Katy, explaining that when the opportunity arose to purchase Jann’s cake shop, the trio seized the chance to establish a year-round bookshop in Dunvegan.
“I can never resist a bookshop when I go to a new place, I find them both comforting and exciting – which is a very specific combination!” said Louis.
For Caroline, creating a year-round space was important: “We also wanted somewhere that stayed open all year round, somewhere people could feel at home – somewhere for people who live here, not just for tourists.”
Louis explained: “A waystone is a marker in the landscape, placed by human hands to guide future travellers. It’s also an integral part of a sailor’s compass, a lodestone reliably pointing the way home. It felt like an apt name for a shop situated below Dunvegan’s Duirinish Stone!”
Waystone will initially open from 11am–6pm, Wednesday to Sunday, with ambitions to extend to seven days a week and earlier opening hours by late spring.
After this Saturday’s soft launch, the 28th February will see a celebration event featuring an after-hours acoustic show by Louis Barabbas, alongside nibbles and an opportunity to discuss clubs, community involvement and future projects.
While books and coffee will sustain the business, the directors are clear that the shop’s purpose goes deeper. In an era where so much is available online, they believe physical bookshops still matter.
“So much entertainment is quite passive, but with reading you enter into a relationship with a book, it’s a very intimate thing – a good book can utterly change your life,” said Louis, with Katy adding: “It’s also a really timeless thing, there’s something so special about curling up with a story that might have been first told hundreds of years ago and has touched the lives of generations of readers, to be part of that chain of experience is a beautiful thing.”
Caroline added: “It’s a great way to start conversations, for such a personal thing it can actually be really social – discussing books, recommending books, it’s a great enabler.”
Community sits at the heart of the project. The team describe it as what distinguishes them from larger booksellers, particularly online retailers. One of their primary aims is to combat social isolation and to provide somewhere people feel welcome, regardless of background, sexuality, race, gender, age “or anything else that might make one feel marginalised”, Louis said.
In addition to stocking fiction, non-fiction, local authors and specialist genres, Waystone will offer a book ordering service for titles not currently on the shelves, with collection from the shop or delivery to those who may find travel difficult.
Alongside book groups and author readings, Waystone plans to host memoir writing clubs, live music, workshops, regular boardgame meet-ups, children’s story time and one-off gatherings shaped by local interest.
“We really want people in Dunvegan (and Skye generally) to feel a sense of ownership of this shop,” the team explained. “Books and coffee will pay the bills but the important thing is that people who live here feel like it’s theirs. We’re also open to ideas from people in the area – if people want to do something, we’d like to help make that happen!”