Culture

I can’t remember the last time I bought a book from a chain bookstore. With several online shopping options (check out goodbooksnz.co.nz: it’s often cheaper than Amazon, and proceeds go to Oxfam), and UBS so close, there seems to be little reason to leave campus for books. Besides, even if the Web and UBS fail you, Dunedin is second-hand bookstore central. And so I present our Top 5 Secondhand Bookstores in Dunedin, in no particular order:


Scribes
Corner of St. David and Great King Streets
Alright, let’s ease in with a place everyone should know by now. To many, Scribes is the unofficial University second-hand bookstore. It’s near campus, stocks a massive inventory, and has that charming old-shop aesthetic without being too grubby. Walking into Scribes still brings a smile to my face, as the door slowly creaks shut behind me and the smell of books greets me like an old friend. And the books are everywhere. On the dozens of shelves, of course, but also on stacks on the floor, and boxes, and every other available surface. You’d think this situation would make for impossible browsing, but it doesn’t. Genres are marked out well, and the books tend to stay in the right sections. For the most part, the shelved books are arranged alphabetically by author, and it’s actually kind of fun looking through just a few stacks and boxes. Given the size of its inventory, Scribes is fairly comprehensive for a second-hand bookstore, but its selection of literary fiction (including classics), history, and biography is most impressive. Most of the literary fiction books I picked up were priced between $9.00 and $12.50, but there were some good reads at $6.00, too. During my trip there, I picked up a David Lodge novel (one of my guilty pleasures) in average condition for $6.00.
 
Octagon Books
32 Moray Place
Octagon Books has had some great press recently, having been rated the seventh-best bookshop in the world by Irish Independent News. And while that’s perhaps a somewhat grandiose claim, Octagon has a lot going for it. It’s got the same sort of blast-from-the-past aesthetic as Scribes, but better. It’s tidier, a little better lit (without looking like a mall), and completes the experience by having an old-school till (the kind that goes ka-ching!) rather than an EFTPOS machine. Octagon’s inventory is truly impressive, the highlights being an extensive New Zealand fiction and non-fiction selection, the scores of English Lit. classics (mostly beautiful hardbacks from way back then), the large shelf of cookbooks, the nostalgia-provoking children’s section, and the surprisingly large Agatha Christie collection. Octagon’s contemporary fiction section is great too, and the books tend to be cheaper than elsewhere: most of the ones I picked up ranged from $6.00 to $10.00. I was tempted by a signed copy of Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island ($15.00) and a mint David Lodge novel ($5.00), but I didn’t have cash with me at the time.
 
Ravens Books
389 Princes Street
Since we’re on this side of town, Ravens Books is next. It’s that shop near Purple Rain and Records Records, with ‘C. Robinson & Sons’ (rather than ‘Ravens Books’) on the shop-front and a potentially offensive statue of a Black child in the front window. It’s the oddest bookshop in my Top 5 list in many ways, even if we ignore the confusing signage and possibly politically-incorrect ornaments. Ravens stocks an eclectic mix of books, but no particular genres stands out as its forte. That said, the non-fiction section is pretty decent for a second-hand bookshop; there were quite a few science, philosophy, social science, and art/film books I was interested in. The layout of the shop is a little unusual too, with several genres tucked downstairs in a somewhat eerie basement. Despite the chairs down there, I was too crept out by the dark, dingy, slightly damp, incompletely-carpeted space to sit for a read. To top it all off, Ravens’ pricing seemed odd to me: I found crappy paperbacks for $8.00 and decent hardbacks for $6.00, and I thought the decent-condition first-edition Margaret Atwood hardback, signed by the author (albeit addressed to a ... Jenny, I believe) was over-priced at $75.00. So, Ravens is weird ... but I kind of like it. I think. At any rate, it made enough of an impression to make my Top 5 list, out of the dozen or so shops that I visited.
 
Selected Works
19 North Road
Selected Works is the new kid on the block, just opened this April. It’s sort of a smaller, modernised version of Scribes, which is unsurprising given that the proprietor was there for years. The shop is well lit and spacious, and the sections are clearly marked. The books aren’t quite perfectly sorted (e.g., alphabetically) yet, but it’s just a matter of time. The collection, despite its size (or lack thereof) is great: Selected Works stocks plenty of decent reads, emphasising literary fiction over popular fiction, and its non-fiction sections (especially philosophy, religion, and biography) also piqued my interest. Pricing is similar to Scribes (mostly $9.50 to $12.50 for stuff I was interested in), but the books tended to be in better condition. I picked up a mint copy of Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths for $12.50, which is less than half of the recommended retail price. The last thing to mention is the display: the books in the display window – stacked up into towers – are for sale, and there’s apparently an impressive method for whipping a book out from the middle of the pile. No towers have collapsed yet, but I plan to visit Selected Works frequently, just in case one does.
 
Read On! Hamblyn’s Quality Second-hand Books
4 North Road
I’ve always had a soft spot for Read On!; I used to stop by almost every day, before popping into New World or to the Gardens to read in the mottled shade. I should do that more often, actually, now that I’m back in the Valley. Anyway, years before Selected Works came along, Hamblyn’s was the bright and shiny second-hand bookshop: it’s very well lit, spacious enough for customers with prams or those in mobility scooters, and the books are arranged neatly in surprisingly specific categories (e.g., there are sub-sections in the cookbooks shelf). To add icing to the cake, the books are mostly in terrific condition, and are actually cleaned well before they are shelved. Mike even gives them another good wipe before handing them to customers! And for all that, the books are very reasonably priced: most of the fiction I picked up cost $8.00 to $10.00, and I walked out with a copy of J. L. Mackie’s brilliant Ethics for a mere $10.00. Hamblyn’s one blind spot is, I think, literary fiction. The contemporary fiction section is large and varied (everything from sci-fi/fantasy to chick lit), but Selected Works has a better (albeit pricier) literary fiction selection.