Just near our house in Newtown is a massive secondhand bookstore, possibly the biggest in Sydney. Someone estimated that there’s more than a million books in there.

It’s also possibly the most frustrating bookstore in the southern hemisphere. There’s very little order, the owner only gives you the vaguest of directions when you ask for something, like, “If we have that, it’ll be in the back corner [underneath 250,000 books in the same genre].” There are boxes and boxes of unsorted books, the aisles are packed with books, and the Christianity section, which has some interest for me, is the most disordered in the place.

I went looking for a hardcover book (not to read, mind, since it’s unlikely you could ever find anything in there), but for a project I’ll blog about later. I picked one up called South By Thunderbird which sounds cool. When I got to the counter, Bob, the owner, leafed through it and said, “Ooh, that’s an interesting book. Where’d you find that?”

Exactly.

I’m sure there’s a ton (literally) of fantastic books in there, but they’ll probably never be found, which is a real shame.

Anyone found any gold in Gould’s (literal or literary)?