Perched at the top of Bourke Street hill since the 1960s, Paperback bookshop seems untouched by time. Small, dark and cosy, this independent store makes any book buying experience intimate and memorable.

If you live in Melbourne and haven’t lost an hour or two in Readings, can you really call yourself a local? While the group’s Carlton store is the gem of Lygon Street, the St Kilda bookshop also has iconic origins (formerly the site of Cosmos). 

Melbourne’s Sun Bookshop is what boutique bookstore dreams are made of. The shop sells everything from a curated selection of fiction, biography, history, travel and crime, through to art, design and photography books.

We get it, not everyone can sit down and read a 1463-page literary classic with dozens of characters, tiny font and even tinier margins (we’re talking about you, Tolstoy). That’s where Melbourne’s  Metropolis Bookshop swoops in. 

Unafraid of bucking the trend, Avenue Books is a small paradise for book lovers that just keeps getting bigger. Originally opened in 1986, the independent bookshop expanded to encompass a second store in 2012 then a Richmond outpost in 2016. 

Located in the scenic town of Healesville, this charming regional store is built on a fierce love of great books. Verso Books is a complete bookworm’s haven — the kind of warm, inviting space in which you’d happily lose an afternoon. 

A long-time fixture of Melbourne’s literary scene, The Little Bookroom has enjoyed many iterations and addresses since first opening in the CBD in 1960. It was created as a dedicated children’s bookstore and now sits happily in Fitzroy North Village.

From the same owners of the Little Bookroom comes this charming sibling store catering to avid bibliophiles of all ages. Neighbourhood Books is stocked with a wide selection of non-fiction, fiction and kids titles, with a strong focus on local talent.