Bookshops I visited in Sydney

On the third day I arrived in Sydney, I thought I would pay a visit to any bookstores that happened to come across my path while I was checking out the city.

My mission was to buy books by Australian authors and Australian authors only.

I took a ferry from Cremorne Point where I am staying across to Circular Quay, the hub of Sydney Harbour, and then caught one of the myriad buses heading out to the city.

The first bookshop I came across was located on 424 George Street.  It is Dymocks, a family owned business and the oldest Australian-owned bookstore.  There are more than twenty branches of Dymocks in New South Wales alone.

There, I bought

1)  Red Dust by Fleur McDonald

2)  Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor

3)  Siren by Tara Moss

4)  Border Watch by Helene Young

5)  The Butcherbird by Geoffrey Cousins

There is no particular section on crime and the Australian fiction section covers romance, historical and crime so you need to know who and what you want to buy otherwise the choices can be overwhelming.

The staff were extremely helpful and friendly and I came away with a good experience and a good impression of the store.

I was also given a free attractive and exclusive book bag (see above) featuring selected titles from the 'Dymocks Booklovers' Best Top 101 list' to carry my purchase in as I had bought over AUS$100 worth of books.

I was a very happy customer.

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Out of the four bookshops I visited in Sydney, I think Abbey's Bookshop is the most well-stocked in terms of crime fiction find.

The crime section is divided into three sections:

1)  Modern Crime

2)  Australian Crime/Crime Anthologies and

3)  Historical Crime.

Unfortunately, I did not explore the rest of the store as I spent too long a time in Modern Crime and had to go when one part of my anatomy called much too loudly in the hush of the aisle.

I bought

1)  Feeding The Demons by Gabrielle Lord (Australia's First Lady of Crime)


2)  Vodka Doesn't Freeze by Leah Giarratano

3)  The Tattoo Man by Alex Palmer

4)  The Darkest Hour by Katherine Howell

If you come to Sydney looking for Australian crime writers and their books, I recommend visiting Abbey's first.

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On the fifth day of my holiday down under, I came across two bookstores.

The first one is the Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya which is situated at Level 2, The Galeries, 500 George Street, Sydney 2000.

As is expected, there is a good selection of books in the store as well as a cafe at the side of the entrance to quench one's thirst or rest those tired feet.

Sadly, I did not find the customer service at Kinokuniya as good as Dymocks'.  I had a list of about ten Australian authors and a pen in my hand and even so, none of the staff approached me to ask whether I needed any help and I did not bother asking for help either.

Nevertheless, I did make some purchases and they were

1)  Torn Apart by Peter Corris

2)  Thrill City by Leigh Redhead

3)  The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

I have not gotten round to buying a Kindle yet and I do not think I ever will unless Santa decided to drop me a present down the chimney this year but I have found an alternative here in Australia and that is the ECO Reader, a 6-inch digital book, priced at AUS$199 available at most bookshops here.

Apart from those two gadgets, I am very much in the dark about paperless books so to speak and will carry on buying printed books in bookshops and borrowing books from libraries for the foreseable future.

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The second bookshop I chanced upon is a discounted bookstore named T Kelly Discount Books situated at 583, George Street, Sydney 2000.  It is quite small and narrow and packed full of books from ceiling to floor and on two extended shelves in the middle of the floor space.  As the banner outside the entrance depicts, T Kelly also sells CDs and DVDs.

The owner is a friendly and helpful chap who helped me find the books that I asked for but unfortunately, even though there is a good selection of bestselling books by bestselling and well-known authors from around the globe, he could only find Peter Temple for me!  Where are all the Aussie writers?

How discounted is it?  Well, a book from a chain bookstore usually costs AUS$24 or more but at T Kelly's, a book sells for AUS$19 give or take.

I love bookshops.

Thus my mission continues.