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romeo and audio archive and there is also the station magazine listening post archive on trove and of course you can listen in on 107 3fm or here sydney bookshops part 2 past and present posted march 12 2026 author vanessa berry filed under bookshops shops sydney city tags abbeys bookshop bookshops dymocks galaxy bookshop secondhand books skygarden sydney city 8 comments reading guides to sydney bookshops from the 1970s and 80s it s striking just how many there were in the city in those decades across the new remainder secondhand and specialist bookshops there were more than you would be able to visit in a day the 1987 guide by christine flynn lists over 100 now the circuit is smaller and most of the remaining central city bookshops are larger established stores but each with their own distinct atmosphere and contribution to the city s bookselling culture 1 abbeys abbeys opened in 1968 and continues today as the best known independent general bookshop in the cbd across from the queen victoria building set back from the street abbeys has the comforting atmosphere of a classic bookshop inside with tall well stocked shelves hand written signs and a carefully arranged table of new releases at the front of the shop founded by ron and eve abbey in a premises on pitt street in a former bank building the shop has been in its york st position since 1986 while it is a general bookshop it specialises in nonfiction and genre fiction particularly crime in the past abbeys also operated a series of standalone specialist bookshops including galaxy and the language bookshop now both upstairs from abbeys the penguin bookshop the oxford and cambridge bookshop and the henry lawson bookshop these last three specialist bookshops traded in as the names suggest penguin titles those from oxford and cambridge university presses and australian books but these have been consolidated into the one shop now in addition to their range of nonfiction books and ability to order seemingly any book you might need or want the handmade and idiosyncratic touches are what endears me to abbeys on a recent visit for example i noticed the latin badges on display behind the counter experientia docet 2 galaxy bookshop these days galaxy sydney s science fiction and fantasy bookshop can be found above abbeys just look for the stormtrooper guarding the internal stairs it has moved a number of times since it opened in 1975 at 106a bathurst st to clarence st and then to castlereagh st which is where i first came upon it in the 1990s when i discovered galaxy thanks to a high school friend who came from a family of sci fi and fantasy fans i found a portal to many other possible and imagined worlds as well as the world of fandom in the comments section of my previous post on sydney bookshops there are some fond galaxy memories it s clearly a shop that has played a big part in people s lives perhaps this is why of all the bookshops i have searched for galaxy is the one i ve found the most photographs of bathurst st 1985 city of sydney archives clarence st 1987 john gaspar flickr galaxy today york st above abbeys 3 dymocks dymocks is sydney s oldest bookshop having been in the same location since 1890 its current premises were constructed in the late 1920s the city s first shopping centre the block it is an elegant building with a book themed neon sign a book for each letter of dymocks and an animation of turning pages beneath the name i m fond of the dymocks building with its unusual beachscape mural in the foyer and clock with the message time conquers all and its many floors of little shops selling jewellery fishing lures hair products and other niche objects and services the bookshop itself takes up three floors and retains its past grandeur with its high ceilings and mezzanine cafe where you can sit in a booth and have tea and a friand and look over the people browsing below on the ground floor it has a wide selection of fiction and a vast range of greeting cards nonfiction is upstairs and children s books in the interconnecting rooms of the basement in 1987 flynn in her guidebook described the original features of the interior such as the balcony level and the leadlight windows writing perhaps as nostalgia for the past increases these features will receive more attention certainly there s a classic feeling to spending time in dymocks that of browsing in a capacious book arcade 4 kinokuniya kinokuniya opened its first store in neutral bay in 1996 and then in 2002 opened its big city store in the then recently opened galeries victoria the only branch of this japanese bookshop chain in australia it has a huge collection of books of all genres on its alphabetically indexed shelves this system is one of the defining details of kinokuniya if you look up a book that is in stock it gives its alphanumerical shelf location for example my recent book calendar can be found at e09 07 or mirror sydney at c18 06 another is the way that when you buy a book the seller rubber stamps the price sticker on the back to mark that it has been paid for in case you are stopped by the bag checking security guard by the escalators it is these kinds of details that give every bookshop its own distinct atmosphere and is one of the pleasures of shopping in them the familiarity that comes with knowing each shop s particular rituals in kinokuniya you can go on a long drift in through new releases australian literature children s books comics then on to cultural studies or go in the other direction through biography art stationery and into the japanese book section and in this way hours can go by 5 hondarake full of books hidden away in an old commercial building at the edge of chinatown is hondarake full of books a secondhand bookshop for japanese books of all kinds most are in japanese and span all genres novels art books cookbooks children s books and there is also a small english section even if you don t read japanese this is a peaceful friendly store to browse in hondarake recently celebrated its 22nd year of operation it s notable for being the last secondhand bookshop in the cbd with elizabeth s on pitt st closing in 2016 but continuing in newtown and the time capsule that was kelly s discount books on george st finally gone at hondarake as well as its books for sale it has a separate area with a big manga library that you can browse in by the hour at the back of the shop 6 title the city branch of title is at barangaroo on the ground floor of one of the severe concrete and glass buildings that make up this part of the city when i went one weekday lunchtime it was busy with people browsing on their lunch break and tourists stopping their wanderings to have a look inside title sells both books and music with a focus on classic cult literature art and design books and music books as their new arrivals display reveals as many do i gravitate to new arrivals and staff picks which gives as well as whatever is new and suggested a sense of the character of the store 7 borders on to a couple more bookshops of the past one big one small first the big chain store the arrival of the american bookstore borders to australia in the early 2000s was greeted with dismay by local booksellers in sydney the first store opened at macquarie centre followed by a central city store in the skygarden shopping centre in pitt st mall next to angus and robertson what i remember most about borders was its huge range of international magazines which i d sit and read for longer that i d feel comfortable doing anywhere else from hearing other people s memories of borders sitting around in there reading the magazines and books and leaving without buying anything seemed to be a common experience and perhaps contributed to them closing all stores across the country in 2011 thinking about borders makes me remember the skygarden shopping centre it has now been absorbed into westfield but back in the 90s and 00s sometimes a small crowd would gather to watch the toy soldiers coming out of the clock on the hour the clock is just visible in the photo above white with red and yellow blocks on either side you could ride a long escalator up to the top food court level which as the name suggested had a glass roof and indoor plants with trailing vines 8 tea in the library a short lived bookstore cafe tea in the library was not far from abbey s on york st no 119 the building with the vladimir tichy ceramic mural on the stairs it was in its own words an independent boutique bookshop and cafe that provides a haven for lovers of good literature good food and good vibes with the atmosphere of a literary lounge room along the lines of a new york literary discussion club or english country house library with its dimpled leather lounges and wooden bookshelves it did indeed have the feeling of a private library surprisingly transplanted to a basement on york st there s no trace of the bookshop having been there today but it lives on in book form proprietor annette freeman wrote a book about the experience of running the shop it s a detailed often humorous account of establishing the shop and everything she learnt along the way at the start she lists her articles of faith which set out the importance of books and literary communities as well as something any reader of this post will likely agree with that the world can always use another bookshop sydney bookshops part 1 sydney s phantom book shops revisited posted january 18 2026 author vanessa berry filed under shops sydney city tags adyar bookshop angus and roberston ashwood s basement books bookshops comic kingdom gould s book arcade isadore brodsky state library of nsw sydney s phantom bookshops the bookshop darlinghurst the cinestore the land beyond beyond 30 comments sydney s phantom book shops by isadore brodsky was published in 1973 one of brodsky s many historical studies of the city brodsky was a doctor and a passionate historian a prolific researcher of what was then called old sydney its 19th and early 20th century history sydney s phantom book shops followed the stories of the city s bookshops and sellers inspired by brodsky s passion for books and his dismay over the dwindling number of small independent businesses in the rapidly modernising sydney of the 1960s whenever i come across it in secondhand book shops i pause struck by the cartoonish ghostly lettering on its cover designed to look like a torch was shining over the name in the dark by phantom brodsky meant book shops that were no longer there that had been lost as the city changed the 19th century buildings that had been occupied by small businesses were rapidly being demolished closed or relocated high rises were being built and the streetscape remodelled brodsky s study ends in the early 1970s and of those he records only dymocks continues as a bookshop today as well as sydney s phantom book shops a number of guidebooks were published of sydney bookshops around the same time in the 1970s there were two editions of inside sydney s bookshops by tom and wendy whitton who themselves became booksellers establishing megalong books in leura and in the 1980s bookshops of sydney by christine flynn both provide excellent time travel capturing the atmospheres of the shops as well as descriptions of their specialties in these guides i find bookshops that continue to this day abbey s galaxy gleebooks modern times and others which lasted for long enough for any seasoned book shopper to remember them well i ve been reading these as i ve been researching sydney city bookshops from the 1980s to the present as part of my state library of nsw summer fellowship inspired by brodsky i thought i would make my own list of phantoms remembering some of the book shops that have gone from the city more recently as with any such list it s selective but i ve tried to capture some of the most significant and atmospheric of sydney city bookshops from the 1980s onwards and i look forward to hearing about the bookshops and bookshop experiences you remember angus and robertson for a century angus and robertson was a mainstay of australian bookselling and by the 1980s and 90s it already had a long and storied history at that time there was a huge angus and robertson that took up the entire basement level of the imperial arcade and there were also up to 170 suburban stores across the country now it exists only as an online store and is best remembered as a formative part of australian book selling and publishing history when visiting angus and robertson at the centre of pitt st mall you would go down the steep stairs to find a long cavernous shop that seemed to extend back as far as the eye could see it was a good place to hide out during lunch hour if you worked in the city and this photo captures something of its atmosphere with a large collection of mainly mass market books in a long fluoro lit basement as with many of the bookshops i ve been researching there are few photographs of them to be found online not for the first time i wish i had walked around as a teenager taking photos of everywhere i went in the city these photographs come from old shops old sydney groups on facebook and there are also some photos of the window displays that caught people s attention at street level here 2 adyar bookshop opened by the theosophical society in the 1920s adyar had various locations around the city castlereagh st market st in the state theatre building clarence st then finally 99 bathurst st which you can still visit virtually thanks to the magic of 360 degree photography which was its last location before it closed in 2012 this article attributed the reason for its closure to the mainstreaming of many of the mind body spirit ideas that were adyar s stock and trade as well as the general pressures of early 21st century bookselling online shopping and digital media this ad from 1977 gives a sense of the kind of titles stocked by adyar in her 1987 guide christine flynn describes the market st shop this way carpeted and quiet secluded from natural light adyar has the solemnity of a place of worship other descriptions of adyar make mention of the smell of incense that would envelop you upon entering the shop which also forms a part of my memories of adyar when it was the place to seek out tarot cards crystals and books on the esoteric metaphysical and paranormal it was one of those shops where it felt like entering an entire world just being in adyar gave you the sense that there could be other forces at work behind everyday life and the shop might have the guide to finding them 3 ashwood s if adyar had a peaceful sweetly scented meditative atmosphere ashwood s was its opposite it was often crowded with record collectors searching for a bargain when i first came upon it in the 1990s then it was one of three secondhand book and record shops on a row on pitt st including lawsons and the pitt facing onto the hole in the ground that had been anthony hordern s enorm...