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The Best Bookstores in Melbourne to Find Your Next Great Read
Find the best bookstores in Melbourne, from beloved indie shops and second-hand gems to rare-book specialists, design stores and literary institutions.
The best bookstores in Melbourne are never simply places to buy a book. They are city landmarks, cultural hideouts, date ideas, design rabbit holes and rainy-day refuges stocked with paper, ink and excellent taste. From late-night icons and second-hand treasure rooms to art-book specialists, queer bookshops, children’s classics, cookbook archives and wine bars with shelves worth raiding, Melbourne’s bookshop scene is one of the city’s great pleasures.
Need a new novel, a rare find, a coffee-table beauty or a clever gift with more soul than a scented candle? These are the Melbourne bookstores worth making a day around.
The Forbidden Chapter
Brunswick West now has a bookstore with a blush in its margins. The Forbidden Chapter is a Melbourne bookstore and cafe devoted to romance, romantasy, fantasy, dark romance, thrillers, horror, crime and LGBTQ+ reads, with a 12-metre book wall, local authors on the shelves and coffee for those planning a serious browse. Beyond the paperbacks, there are book clubs, author events and The Forbidden Vault, a members’ room for exclusive releases and deliciously committed genre devotees.
453 Victoria Street, Brunswick West
World Food Books
World Food Books is one of Melbourne’s great upstairs discoveries: a specialist art, design and counterculture bookshop hidden on Level 6 of the Nicholas Building. The shelves favour the rare, radical and beautifully strange, moving through contemporary art, photography, architecture, fashion, film, poetry, philosophy, cultural theory and out-of-print catalogues you’re unlikely to find anywhere else. It’s a city bookshop for deep divers, design obsessives and anyone who likes their browsing with a little intellectual voltage.
The Nicholas Building Room 5, Level 6/37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Ladyhawke
Ivanhoe readers are well served by Ladyhawke, an independent Melbourne bookshop with the practical grace of a local favourite. Set near Ivanhoe Station on Upper Heidelberg Road, it carries books, cards and puzzles, with staff happy to order in titles that have slipped beyond the shelves. It’s the right stop for a birthday present, a school-holiday read, a weekend novel or the civilised little errand of buying one book and leaving with two.
186 Upper Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe
Terrain Bookshop
On Brunswick Street, Terrain feels less like a bookshop than a small ecological embassy. Opened in 2023, this Fitzroy bookshop, gallery and studio is devoted to ecology, more-than-human thinking, art, design and technology, with books arranged across elemental categories including Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Space. The room itself carries the argument, too: mycelium lights, lime walls, algae-based bioplastic panels, recycled furnishings and a phytoremediation tank make browsing feel unusually alert to the living world outside.
101–103 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Amplify Bookstore
Amplify Bookstore gives West Melbourne one of its most necessary shelves. Founded by Marina Sano and Jing Xuan Teo, it began online in 2020 with a clear purpose: to make books by BIPOC authors easier to find, browse and champion. Now at 55 Peel Street, the store carries fiction, poetry, memoir, children’s books, graphic novels, essays and regional book boxes with a point of view that feels both generous and firm. It is less a niche than a corrective, and all the better for it.
55 Peel Street, West Melbourne
Brunswick Bound
On Sydney Road, Brunswick Bound is exactly where it should be: a Melbourne bookstore alert to the street, generous in spirit and deeply at home among the suburb’s authors, musicians and opinionated readers. Opened by Susie and Rob Arambasic in 2007, this independent bookshop pairs fiction, non-fiction, children’s books and local writing with vinyl, stationery, jewellery and gifts. Events, book clubs and sharp staff picks keep it tied to the neighbourhood, while the shelves have the easy intelligence of a shop that knows its readers by instinct.
361 Sydney Road, Brunswick
Through the Looking Glass Bookstores
Through the Looking Glass has the temperament of a storybook with a few sly jokes written in the margins. Its Fitzroy store brings second-hand books, gifts and curiosities to Brunswick Street, while the Belgrave and Sassafras shops make the Dandenongs feel even more inclined toward mystery, weather and excellent browsing. Stock shifts often, with classics, cult fiction, Australian writing, children’s books, vintage finds and oddities across the shelves. Each store has its own personality, which is rather the point.
341 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
1669 Burwood Highway, Belgrave
3/383 Mount Dandenong Tourist Road, Sassafras
Bookshop by Uro
Bookshop by Uro gives Collingwood Yards one of its most quietly exacting pleasures: a small, highly considered store devoted to art, architecture, design and urban life. Owned and run by Uro Publications, it gathers specialist titles from Australia and abroad, with particular strength in the built environment, photography, sustainable design, interiors and ideas about how cities are made. In a precinct already thick with creative life, this is the shop for readers who like their books beautiful, useful and a little argumentative.
Unit 5/30 Perry Street, Collingwood
Coventry Bookstore
Upstairs on Coventry Street, this South Melbourne bookshop has the air of a place run by someone who still believes recommendations matter. Owner Stephen Hepburn keeps the shelves compact but considered, with fiction, non-fiction, design, cookbooks and children’s titles arranged for genuine browsing rather than overwhelm. It is especially good for gifts, local loyalty and those small acts of bookseller instinct: the title you had not heard of, handed over with absolute conviction.
Level 1, 265 Coventry Street, South Melbourne
Sainsbury’s Books
Sainsbury’s Books is Camberwell’s great second-hand specialist, with more than 35 years behind the counter and the sort of shelves that reward an unhurried eye. Its strengths are art, architecture, photography, literature, history and philosophy, though the real pleasure is in the odd arrivals: out-of-print titles, limited editions, review copies, remainders and books that have travelled some distance before reaching Riversdale Road. For collectors and curious browsers, it remains a quiet suburban thrill.
534 Riversdale Road, Camberwell
Asphalt Books
High up in the Nicholas Building, Asphalt Books is one of Melbourne’s small acts of reward. The lift, the corridors, the room number, the sense of having followed a rumour to its end: all of it suits this second-hand bookshop, founded by Armani Hollindale and shaped by a distinctly personal eye. Inside, the shelves move through fiction, poetry, essays, art books and graphic novels with more intention than clutter, championing emerging and established voices, local and international. Check the limited opening hours before visiting.
Nicholas Building, Level 4, Room 23, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Willows & Wine
On Victoria Street, Willows & Wine understands one of Melbourne’s finer truths: books and a glass of something interesting were always meant to meet. This West Melbourne book bar pairs wine, cheese and shelves devoted to diverse stories, with a strong focus on Black, Brown and Indigenous authors alongside other underrepresented voices. Read in-house, browse between pours, or settle in for a date that does not require small talk to do all the heavy lifting.
315 Victoria Street, West Melbourne
Metropolis Bookshop
Three floors above Swanston Street, Metropolis Bookshop feels like one of Curtin House’s great rewards: bright, particular, and faintly conspiratorial in the best way. Its shelves are devoted to art, architecture, photography, fashion, film, design, counterculture and ideas with teeth, with titles rarely found in ordinary bookshops. This is where Melbourne’s artists, architects, stylists, students and sharp-eyed browsers go for books that change a room, a project or an afternoon.
Level 3, Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street, Melbourne
The Chestnut Tree Bookshop
On Barkly Street, The Chestnut Tree Bookshop feels entirely West Footscray: thoughtful, multicultural, well-read and a little resistant to fuss. Founded by former academic Reem Sweid, this bookshop and cafe carries fiction, climate writing, children’s books, cookbooks, memoirs, and sharp staff picks, with every purchase supporting Australian forest restoration. It is a place for readers who still believe a bookshop can shape a neighbourhood, one recommendation, launch and book club at a time.
542 Barkly Street, West Footscray
Already Read Bookshop
Already Read is a Fitzroy North favourite for quality second-hand books, with shelves that reward a good old-fashioned rummage. The Scotchmer Street shop spans most genres, from classics and literary fiction to crime, history, art, children’s books and under-the-radar finds, with stock that often feels far more carefully kept than second-hand shopping might suggest. Open Friday to Sunday, it’s a neighbourhood bookshop in Melbourne best visited without a strict plan.
98 Scotchmer Street, Fitzroy North
Happy Valley
Happy Valley is Collingwood retail at its most joyfully specific. Opened by Chris Crouch in 2013, the Smith Street store brings together design books, art titles, vinyl, prints, cards, gifts and odd little objects with the eye of someone who knows exactly how to make a shelf sing. It is especially good for graphic novels, cookbooks, children’s books, local makers and the sort of present that feels far more considered than a last-minute purchase.
Note: Happy Valley is preparing to move from 294 Smith Street to a larger nearby space, but it’s business as usual at the current store until then. Check its socials before visiting for the latest update.
294 Smith Street, Collingwood
Paperback Bookshop
Paperback Bookshop has been keeping the top end of Bourke Street in good books since the 1960s, and its cult status is well earned. Small but sharply stocked, this independent city landmark favours literary fiction, philosophy, politics, poetry, essays, history, art, travel and the titles that seem to vanish elsewhere. The staff recommendations are excellent, the shelves reward close browsing, and the late-night hours make it one of Melbourne’s great post-dinner bookshop detours.
60 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Kay Craddock Antiquarian Bookseller
Kay Craddock Antiquarian Bookseller is Melbourne’s rare-book grand dame, hidden in plain sight inside the neo-Gothic Assembly Hall on Collins Street. Established in 1965, the shop holds a remarkable collection of antiquarian, second-hand and fine books, with stock ranging from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century across literature, history, art, children’s books, maps and curious printed treasures. It feels part bookshop, part archive, part beautifully kept secret, with staff who know the value of every spine.
The Assembly Hall Building, 156 Collins Street, Melbourne
Perimeter Books
Perimeter Books is the Thornbury stop for readers who like their shelves sharp, selective and visually led. This independent bookshop, publisher and distributor specialises in contemporary photography, art, design, architecture, theory, small press titles and zines, with a bright High Street space that feels more gallery than cluttered book cave. It is the place to find the beautiful, brainy and hard-to-source, from artist monographs to experimental print projects and magazines with cult followings.
734 High Street, Thornbury
Books for Cooks
Books for Cooks is Melbourne’s great culinary bookshop, set along the Victoria Street edge of Queen Victoria Market with the city’s produce traders practically at its doorstep. Inside, more than 50,000 titles span food, wine and the culinary arts, from glossy new releases and chef memoirs to rare, vintage and antiquarian cookbooks. Drop by for an Ottolenghi and leave with a 1970s Italian aperitivo manual, a deep dive into fermentation, and a sudden need to cook dinner from scratch.
Queen Victoria Market, 115–121 Victoria Street, Melbourne
Avenue Bookstore
Avenue Bookstore has been feeding Melbourne’s reading habits since 1986, growing from its Albert Park original into three beloved neighbourhood stores across the south-east. The shelves are generous without feeling generic: new fiction, thoughtful non-fiction, children’s books, cookbooks, crime, memoir, staff picks and excellent gifts all get their moment. Regular author events and clever bookseller recommendations keep it feeling plugged into the city’s literary life, while the browsing remains blissfully analogue.
127 Dundas Place, Albert Park
91 Swan Street, Richmond
434 Glen Huntly Road, Elsternwick
NGV Design Store
NGV Design Store is where Melbourne’s gallery-going crowd goes for the books that make a room smarter. Across its NGV International and Fed Square stores, the shelves span art, design, fashion, architecture, photography, children’s titles and exhibition catalogues, with a distinctly giftable eye. It’s especially strong for NGV publications, which cover Australian, international and Indigenous art, as well as artist monographs, collection titles and beautifully produced show companions. Visit after an exhibition, leave with your coffee table looking considerably more cultured.
NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square, Melbourne
Sun Bookshop
Set inside Yarraville’s beloved Art Deco Sun Theatre building, Sun Bookshop is a neighbourhood institution with proper browsing power. Its shelves move deftly through fiction, biography, history, travel, crime, art, photography, food and design, with the kind of curation that makes a quick visit dangerous. Children’s titles come via The Younger Sun, now housed with the main shop, making this a rare bookshop that works just as well before a film, after coffee or on a westside wander.
10 Ballarat Street, Yarraville
Hill of Content
Hill of Content has been part of Melbourne’s literary life since 1922, making it the city’s oldest bookshop and still one of its most beloved. Now settled into its new Bourke Street home after more than a century at number 86, this independent bookshop is built for considered browsing, with a discerning range spanning Australian writing, international fiction, history, art, travel, children’s books and beautiful editions. Staff picks are part of the pleasure, as is the sense that every shelf has been chosen with care.
1/32 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Readings
Readings is Melbourne book culture in bricks-and-mortar form. The flagship Carlton store opened in 1969 and remains a literary landmark, with deep shelves, sharp staff picks, author events, music, gifts and the kind of browsing energy that can quietly rearrange an afternoon. Across its nine Melbourne shops, Readings champions Australian writing, children’s literature, literary fiction, politics, cookbooks and the beautifully obscure with equal conviction. Big enough to be useful, independent enough to feel personal.
Locations: Carlton, Carlton Kids, Chadstone, Doncaster, Emporium, Hawthorn, Malvern, State Library and St Kilda
Hares & Hyenas
Hares & Hyenas has been part of Melbourne’s queer literary life since 1991, moving from South Yarra to Fitzroy, Collingwood and now St Kilda. More than a bookshop, it’s a cultural archive, gathering place and events space, with shelves spanning queer fiction, memoir, gender-diverse writing, politics, erotica, art, poetry and hard-to-find international titles. Come for the books; stay for the sense that every shelf has been chosen with purpose.
Victorian Pride Centre, 79–81 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda
The Little Bookroom
The Little Bookroom has been shaping Melbourne’s youngest readers since 1960, and its Brunswick East home remains one of the city’s most treasured specialist bookshops. Dedicated entirely to children’s literature, it moves from board books and illustrated classics to middle-grade adventures, YA fiction and beautifully chosen gifts with the confidence of booksellers who know exactly what small readers, and the adults buying for them, will love. A Melbourne institution, newly chaptered.
8 Village Avenue, Brunswick East
Mary Martin Bookshop
Mary Martin Bookshop has been matching Melbourne readers with their next great read since 1945, and its city outposts still carry the pleasures of a truly independent bookseller. The Southbank store is made for an arts-precinct browse before a show, while its market locations bring bookseller recommendations, children’s titles, fiction, gifts and good paper things into the city’s weekend rituals. Come for a new release, leave with three staff picks and a tote bag full of excellent intentions.
Locations: Southbank, Queen Victoria Market and South Melbourne Market
Dymocks Melbourne
Dymocks Melbourne may be a national name, but its Collins Street store has genuine destination status. Set across the lower ground of Collins234, this vast CBD bookshop is built for deep browsing, with new releases, literary fiction, cookbooks, children’s titles, gifts, stationery and enough shelves to derail a lunch break entirely. There’s a cafe for mid-shop caffeine, regular author events and the comforting certainty that you’ll find something for everyone, including yourself.
234 Collins Street, Melbourne
From cult indies and specialist literary stores to sprawling CBD bookshops stacked with new releases, the best bookstores in Melbourne make reading feel like a citywide ritual. Stock up on your next novel, art book or beautifully bound gift, then take your new read somewhere suitably Melbourne: a leafy park, a laneway cafe, a wine bar, or the tram ride home. Your next great page-turner is waiting.
