Dubai: In 1975, a shop opened on the Sharjah-Dubai road, selling good-quality children's toys — something that owner Isobel Abulhoul had noticed there was a significant lack of.
Soon, customers began asking for mother and baby books, then cookbooks and then fiction, "so this became the focus of our business, driven by our customers, really," Isobel told Gulf News.
"Over time, books became more and more of our core stock. In those days books were only available in bookshops, they weren't available in supermarkets and they certainly weren't available in toy shops; it didn't happen," she said.
Magrudy's opened its second shop on the Jumeirah Beach Road in 1978. It now has five retail shops in Dubai, one in Abu Dhabi, one in Al Ain, two official university book shops at New York University Abu Dhabi and Zayed University Dubai, and one educational resource centre.
Loyalty Card sale
To celebrate its 35th anniversary this month, the bookshop had a sale for Loyalty Card holders, selling everything in its branches for one day only, at a 35 per cent discount.
Julia Johnson, author and Dubai resident since 1975, said at the celebration in Jumeirah: "There was little traffic and definitely no traffic jams. There were no high-rise buildings or malls, and very few shops outside the souqs.
"When Isobel and her family opened Magrudy's they were fulfilling a real need in the community by providing good quality educational toys. Isobel is an avid reader, so it's hardly surprising that books gradually became more important and gradually took up more and more space in the shop. Magrudy's gradually evolved to become a household name," Johnson said.
Isobel pins some of the bookshop's success on her team "listening to customers and trying to stock what customers want", she said.
Contacts within the educational community also helped and she continued that she welcomes parents back with their children, who came to the shop as children themselves.
"Back in 1975, I hadn't a clue about business and retail, but Dubai was a very forgiving place, and allowed me to make dreadful mistakes and still somehow succeed," Isobel said at the celebration.
"I always thought of Magrudy's like a child — a difficult and wayward child, sometimes in trouble, often in the naughty corner, but with such spirit and warmth and heart that I could not help but love it and nurture it, and lavish it with much time and attention over the last three decades," she said.
Isobel also founded the Emirates Airline Literature Festival, now in its third year.
The next Festival will run next March 8-12 at the InterContinental Hotel, Dubai Festival City.
Guy Warrington, British Consul-General, and Mohammad Al Murr, Vice-Chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) were also present at the anniversary celebrations.
Abulhoul concluded: "I've got five children and my sixth is Magrudy's."
