stillhq.com : Mikal, a geek from Canberra living in Silicon Valley

Sydney 1, Mikal 1

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:36:00 PST

I tried two more second hand bookstores yesterday. Books Buy and Sell no longer exists, it has been replaced with a sex toy store. I guess that says something about Sydney again. Gould's books was all I had remembered (big mounds of books everywhere), and was worth the visit. Its more organised than I remember, and I did eventually find the science fiction section. Thanks to those who recommended it in comments here. It is surprising that a second hand book store managed to have no paperback Isaac Asimov, with the four Harry Harrisons I bought make up for that I suppose.

I took some photos of Gould's as well, but it turns out that the room full of PhDs can't figure out how to empty a micro SD card, so I will give up on putting them online for now.

Tags for this post: book() Sydney() Comment

Sydney redeems itself, if only a little

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:28:00 PST

On the way home from our awesome soup dumpling dinner in Sydney we dropped into Elizabeth's Bookshop entirely by accident. We'd deliberately walked a block offset from where we do normally to avoid boredom, and just got lucky.

The second hand science fiction selection was good (not huge, but big enough to have some stuff I hadn't already got in the collection), but then again the store was quite small. Overall much better than Galaxy. Oh, and they had a huge range of erotic fiction for some reason. That might just say something about Sydney I suppose.

Tags for this post: book() Sydney() Comment

On the potentially sorry state of second hand science fiction book stores in Sydney

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:23:00 PST

Following a recommendation from Danny, I went and checked out Galaxy Books on York Street during one of my lunch times. The review says they have a good second hand section, and I am still hunting for some old Asimovs. Unfortunately, it was a waste of time. The second hand section must of only had about 100 books in it, and none of them were interesting. They did have an awesome new section though, but I figure buying books from the 1950s new is cheating.

One book I might be forced to buy new is Asimov's The Complete Robot. I can't find it in any second hand bookstores that I've tried, and its not even available new in the US. Inexplicably though, it is easily available new in Australia. I am not sure why. It seems like a shame to spend nearly $25 on a book though, so I am not sure what I will do about that one yet.

I will continue my hunt for a good second hand book store in the Sydney CBD. Any recommendations?

Update: post title fixed after entirely deserved sarcasm from Steven.

Tags for this post: book() Sydney() Comment