Gould’s Books
May 26th, 2008 by Ben
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)?
That cracks me up
love the picture – cute!
Found any good Christian stuff? I spent a while trying to skim over most of the Christian stuff not so long ago and couldn’t see to spot anything worthwhile. Seems to be a lot of vague-ish American sounding stuff, and plenty of traditional Catholic stuff?
I’m a big fan of Gould Books. Family holidays in Newtown involved at least half a day buried in the myriad boxes scattered throughout the aisles, and poking through double stacked shelves (both horizontally and vertically), Gould certainly doesn’t waste any space (except perhaps for cat flaps). I’ve found a number of hidden gems over the years – though nothing but obscure theology in the Christian section.