Second semester begins yet again, and with it can come unusual urges, like the sudden desire to purchase A Review of Agricultural Practises in the Nelson Land District 1920-1963 for the price of a bottle of scrumpy, or a first edition Folk Ballads of Serbia instead of vodka. Where should you go to satisfy this need? I set out to visit the five secondhand bookshops in North and Central Dunedin in search of an answer.
Galaxy Books
841 Great King St
Ambience 3
Pricing 8
Selection 5
Galaxy occupies almost the perfect location for students, situated next to the gardens, halfway between North East Valley and Studentville, in the corner of an old white building. High on the building’s side block capitals proclaim “YE OLDE BOOK DEN”. I cringe. There is no excuse to ever use ‘Ye Olde’.
Entering Galaxy the first thing that struck me was the smell. Normally large collections of old books tend to smell like old books. By some magic Galaxy has managed to avoid such a smell, opting instead for something far more unpleasant. The smell was distressing and unlike anything I can clearly bring to mind. It was a bit like a tiny vial of semen had been mixed into an vast vat of fairly neutral air freshener with an undertone of something sour. The result was something slightly, but never overwhelmingly, unpleasant. Though the semen could just be me projecting, as I can’t remove from mind the disgust at the (presumably secondhand) pornography proudly displayed in the middle of the shop. The porn was covered in a plastic wrap so I can assume it wasn’t ‘used’, a small relief. Surely, in a world in which the internet is so jammed with free and diverse pornography, there is no need to buy pornographic magazines, particularly from a secondhand shop. Even if I’m wrong and Galaxy’s porn does a roaring trade, have the decency to situate it in a more discrete location, not in pride of place in the centre of the shop.
However, apart from the smell and the porn, Galaxy was not a bad bookshop. The towering wooden shelving gave the place a pleasant Victorian feel, the selection was moderate and the prices were good. Paperbacks in average condition was priced at $5, while those in better condition were generally not more than $10. Galaxy also offers an extensive range of textbooks, mostly around one edition out of date.
If you suddenly hunger for a cheap book but don’t want to have to walk far, Galaxy is probably worth a look.
Scribes Books
Corner St David & Great King Streets
Ambience 8
Pricing 7.5
Selection 8
Ah, Scribes. Potentially more essential to the English student than the Burns building. A few minutes’ walk from campus, Scribes is perfectly placed to cater to the uni. They go out of their way to make sure they always have generous amounts of prescribed texts, always eager to buy them back at the end of semester. However they do not provide textbooks for certain sciences, I imagine because the constantly redundant editions are difficult to sell.
Scribes has been a vibrant secondhand bookshop for so long that the shop and the building having grown inseparably into one another, in an ecosystem of words. Classical music, dubious at a rave but apt in a bookshop, flutters down through the shelves, and boxes of books line the paths like foliage.
My biggest criticism of Scribes is that the space is quite small for the amount of books crammed into it, and as such the store lacks places to sit and relax. Adding some chairs at strategic locations would improve the shop, difficult as it would be to squeeze them in. The immense collection of books also means that the shelves stretch higher than I can reach, even with my average height and the stools provided. I recommend the short bring some sort of extendable grabbing device.
Scribes has both an excellent selection, and an exceptionally high turnover rate. The shop’s popularity means that stock can appear quickly and go quickly, making each visit to Scribes unique. The price range is generous, ranging from $6.50 for lower quality paperbacks to $15 for books that look sparkling new.
All in all Scribes makes a great first, or last, stop in any book hunt.
Hard To Find Secondhand Bookshop
20 Dowling St
Ambience 8.5
Pricing 7
Selection 9.5
True to its name, Hard to Find is secreted away down an otherwise fairly barren street.
A majestic staircase leads up to the shop, adorned with an antique chairlift, rather a thoughtful gesture to the elderly or physically impaired. Though, as I am unsure how effective such an old lift would be, it may be a gesture only. A rather misshapen statue of an elderly man in a chair awaits me at the top, warped more out of artistic inability than artistic intent. The store itself twists through rooms and corridors, opening out into a spacious front room adorned with comfortable couches, and closing into smaller rooms packed with books and tables and chairs. A miniature train weaves along the floor, and intriguing art squints down at me from the walls.
As comfortable and interesting as the rest of the shop is, a glass window at the back of the store reveals Hard to Find’s true strength. The books in the shop are only the antechamber to Hard to Find's library. A gigantic collection of books stretches back into a warehouse like room behind the shop. A database of these books, with prices and general condition, is searchable on Hard to Find’s website, or you can ask at the desk and they'll hunt down what you want for you. Their pricing structure is reasonable, neither one of the cheapest nor most expensive on this list. Prices vary from $10 to $15 for paperbacks of good to excellent quality.
With such a large amount of excellent books at their disposal Hard to Find’s selection is difficult to surpass.
BOOK SALE
Lower Stafford Street
Ambience 5
Pricing 10
Selection 4
Just down from Savemart, taking heed to the large banner proclaiming BOOK SALE, and ducking through a small door, lies one of the rarely discovered gems of Dunedin secondhand book shopping.
Part of what I admire about BOOK SALE is how they successfully pretend to be something they’re not. A ‘sale’ implies something temporary. BOOK SALE, having gone on for a few years now, probably needs a new name. Having said that the shop does feel a little like an organiser forgot to place an end time on an ordinary book sale’s Facebook event, then died, leaving volunteers unaware that the sale was supposed to close.
Very little has been done to attempt to spruce the place up. The books are not organised in any way, sitting randomly on top of rows of piled boxes, which contained yet more books. Haphazardly interspersed with the books, sits the occasional chair, record collection, rack of clothing or display of crockery, all presumably for sale. National Radio plays quietly overhead and the lights are dim and orange. BOOK SALE has a sort of disorganised charm.
BOOK SALE is actually made up of six different ‘stalls’ each with different price structures. One of the stalls, though I am not sure which one, is run for charity. Some of these stalls, the ones closest to the entrance, are priced like any secondhand bookshop, with prices averaging $9-10. But the stalls further in, away from the door, are almost ludicrously cheap. The prices for these stalls are between $1 and $4, for books of exceptional quality. BOOK SALE does not accept eftpos.
The selection is varied, sometimes there is an abundance of excellence, others you can struggle to find a single book you want. BOOK SALE is a little like what I imagined lucky dips should be as a child, you could get absolutely nothing, you could get amazing things for almost no cost. Of course real lucky dips never worked like that. They were just identical innocuous pieces of shit, wrapped in shiny paper.
If you’re a fan of rooting through boxes of unorganised, cheap and sometimes excellent books, then BOOK SALE is for you.
Dead Souls Bookshop
401 Princes Street
(moving to 393 Princes Street)
Ambience 9
Pricing 5
Selection 8.5
Farther down Princes Street lies Dead Souls.
Though, according to their website, Dead Souls is named after the book by Nikolai Gogol, entering does feel a bit like descending into a pleasant underworld. A black frame around a white door and corridor, followed by steep steps down below street level. Going down the stairs was like descending into a gust of sweet smelling cloud. A delectable and pungent, yet not overpowering, odour wafted gracefully through the whole of the shop’s underground lair. The shop was arrayed in a wonderfully confusing fashion, with labyrinthine corridors and rooms to be explored before reaching the inner chambers. The outer of these chambers were stuffed with genre fiction, while within the inner chamber literature and nonfiction awaited. A long wooden table complimented the inner chamber, and comfortable chairs and interesting curiosities were dotted around the whole space. Behind a rope a printing press, used by the owner, dully reflected the warm subterranean light.
As I perused I was treated to an excellent selection, books I’d be lucky to find elsewhere were piled on top of one another in a glorious cornucopia. On closer inspection I noted that the books were arranged in only vague alphabetical order making it annoyingly difficult to easily search the shelves. The pricing was likewise a disappointment. The prices ranged from $10 for a paperback in poor condition to much higher prices for average or good copies.
Unfortunately Dead Souls also seemed to specialise in those vintage pulp novels popular in the first half of the 20th century, generally regarded as the worst half of the century. Dust jackets from these books adorned the walls, featuring the manic faces of youths engaged in wholesome activities and masculine “heroes” beating down “savages”. I don’t have a problem with Dead Souls selling such books, but as decorations they were tasteless bordering on ugly, especially compared with the rest of the furnishings. The owner clearly thought they were artistic and to a point the dust jackets were tastefully arranged. They may even have appealed to someone, perhaps elderly, in whom they’d spell nostalgia for the good old days, back when homosexuality was illegal and it was socially acceptable to stereotype minorities. Ironically, these elderly people were probably residing in Hard to Find, Dead Souls not having a chair lift on their stairs.
Dead Souls is in the process of moving from their subterranean maze to an above ground space next door. I hope, in the transition, they manage to preserve the unique, secretive atmosphere they've created in their current space, or create something even more wonderful.