WATERSTONE’S WAS ONCE the favourite bookseller of the literati. The shops, with their red carpets and black shelving, were like idealised libraries, jammed with books often overflowing from shelves and tables on to the floors. The staff were knowledgeable and often maverick; you got an exciting sense that the selections represented the idiosyncratic tastes of the company’s booksellers.

Tim Waterstone, the founder, was an enthusiastic and persuasive figure and created the company in his own image. He gave his booksellers licence to stock the books they thought would appeal and to promote those they liked. Sometimes these would be unexpected works, such as Hopeful Monsters by Nicholas Mosley and Ulverton by Adam Thorpe, which found large audiences.

You would certainly expect the shops to display large piles of widely reviewed works of fiction. But no longer. One of the most acclaimed titles of the year has been Helen Simpson’s collection of stories, Constitutional. The initial order for all Waterstone’s branches was 225 copies — just over one for each branch. By comparison, Hatchards, the Waterstone’s-owned shop in Piccadilly, has 300 copies of Joanna Trollope ’s Second Honeymoon. Scott Pack, Waterstone’s books buyer, has said that he finds the literary pages of newspapers irrelevant.

The new approach was signalled in 1999 when Waterstone’s, now part of the HMV group, chose Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes as its book of the month. A former marketing director called the choice “as shocking as seeing your mother drunk in public”. Tim Waterstone, too, complains that the chain has betrayed its heritage, and wants to buy it back.

Gerry Johnson, 45, took charge of that heritage in October. He is a retailer through-and-through. He started as a general assistant at Tesco in 1978 and was the managing director of Booker, the food distributor. He has no literary pretensions. “I’d call myself a middle-market reader,” he says. “I like crime and some thrillers.”

No one will worry about those tastes as long as Johnson promotes a wider range of reading in Waterstone’s 195 branches. But there is a commonly held view that this is not Waterstone’s policy. It has had a terrible press in recent years. It has been accused of dumbing down and of narrowing its stock. It has seemed unwilling to employ any charm to counter these charges; and its defensive approach to PR has cost it dear. Influential authors and publishers are not on its side. When Johnson joined, Waterstone’s was trying to buy its rival chain, Ottakar’s. The purchase may be vital to Waterstone’s future but the Office of Fair Trading referred it to the Competition Commission. The bid has now lapsed, while Waterstone’s waits for the verdict.

Johnson is dismayed by the perception of his company. There is, he says, “a massive misunderstanding of the way Waterstone’s works . . . one of my most important jobs in the coming months is to rectify that.”

Pack has become the bogeyman — the man who revels in his power as dictator of the nation’s reading, arrogantly dismisses distinguished writers and has contempt for critics. There were reportedly celebrations in some quarters last week when he announced he was leaving in the summer.

“The way Scott has been characterised has been very unfortunate,” Johnson says. “He is an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate book buyer.” Certainly Pack has helped several small publishers and even self-publishers. He has offered them advice, read their books and even given them promotional support.

Among the larger publishers his reputation is more mixed — in part because they are not used to hearing blunt assessments of their lead titles. Authors whose works Pack has disparaged include Alan Hollinghurst, Margaret Atwood and Vikram Seth. “Somebody has to say no,” Johnson says, “and that is the responsibility of Scott’s team. They make the right call most of the time.”

In any event, Johnson adds, Pack is responsible only for the books that go into promotions such as three-for-two offers. Critics reply that the promotional shelves have become the most important and the chain is focusing on bestsellers and the selections of the Richard and Judy Book Club.

Johnson insists that the range beyond the bestsellers accounts for 80 per cent of Waterstone’s turnover and that the company would be mad to compromise that range. The expertise of its booksellers, he says, is still what distinguishes it from its competitors. According to critics the range has diminished; and the booksellers are undermined by the diktats of head office in Brentford, West London.

To rebut this, Johnson and Tim Card, the operations manager at Piccadilly, take me round the store, the “flagship” of the chain, and point me to various tables: a Valentine’s Day promotion, a selection of books about incarcerated people ranging from Nelson Mandela to Lord Archer — almost all selected by staff at the branch, not at Brentford.

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