The Best Bookshops in Melbourne for 2026
Find the next book to sink your teeth into at one of these local Melbourne gems.
Melbourne is a city of literary diehards. Maybe it's because we produced Helen Garner, Peter Carey and publications like The Monthly and Overland. Or maybe because our climate provides some excellent indoors weather, primed for plenty of snug afternoons curled up by the fire with a good book for company. Maybe it's because our reading pairs perfectly with a coffee, of which we truly excel at producing. But it's probably because of the many resilient, independent Melbourne bookstores that bustle with readers who understand the magic of paperbacks.
To help hook you up with your next great read, we've rounded up some of Melbourne's best bookshops. Next time you're on the hunt for a good page-turner, hit one of these favourites and support a local business. Your next literary adventure awaits, now go find it.
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The Brunswick Street Bookstore, Fitzroy
In true Fitzroy style, The Brunswick Street Bookstore is sandwiched between an Italian restaurant and Rice, Paper Scissors and sits on a footpath packed with foot traffic. By the time you get through the front door, you'll be desperate for peace and silence, which is exactly what this dreamy bookstore dishes up. It began trading in 1987, pre-Fitzroy renaissance, making it an artefact of a time before Brunswick Street was a trendy, slick hotspot.
Despite the changing times, its reputation prevails as a bookstore that riles against the mainstream and stocks a huge selection of non-fiction titles, concentrating on history, politics, biography, science, literature and cultural studies instead. The top floor is devoted to visual arts, and fittingly, was designed by Melbourne architect Peter Brew.
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Ramona Books, Northcote
Ramona Books is an independent bookstore and a labour of love, having just opened in Northcote's Westgarth Village in 2024. For owner Katie, it was something of an impulse decision to become a bookstore owner, and you can read into her experiences so far on Substack, a far more personal insight than most other stores will give you.
The store itself is warm and inviting, designed for those who want to do more than just browse, with an immediately visible list of staff recommendations and clearly displayed sections to guide your browsing. You'll find journals, cards, fiction, local publications, art and design (proudly displayed to show off their aesthetics, of course, cloth-bound classics, the humanities, and a strong lineup of books and gifts for children. Pop in for a browse, join the monthly book club, attend a 'literary salon' or one of the other late-night events to mingle with your fellow bookworms.
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Perimeter Books, Thornbury
When tired old Dymocks just won't cut it for that special someone with wild bookish tastes, look no further than the quaint shelves at Perimeter. Browsing this bookshop and art space is a delight — and a conscious shopping experience. This is no generalist selection, because as well as breathing in the mildly intoxicating aroma of paperbacks, you'll be running your fingers over the stacks of independent small press books, zines and editions from international and local publications on art, photography, design and architecture.
The store also curates a live events program, hosting exhibitions, talks, launches, workshops and consultations. It's also the home base of a publishing imprint and independent distribution business, and the core of a network of Perimeter-curated retailers across the country.
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Coventry Bookstore, South Melbourne
Coventry Bookstore is one of those great small businesses that is almost as well known as its owner. Stephen Hepburn, described by the official Melbourne tourism website itself as "the friendliest guy in the world", has created a space for bibliophiles that doesn't feel snobby or restrictive to casual readers.
The shelves are tall, and the room is open, with volumes of paperback and hardcover delights that cover fiction and history, gardening, science, biographies, kids' books and much more.
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Happy Valley, Collingwood
Happy Valley is appropriately named. Sitting quietly amidst the grubby hustle of Smith Street, this semi-bookshop, semi-homewares store, all-diverse world of curio is guaranteed to make you smile. Run by Chris Crouch, ex-owner of Polyester Records, Happy Valley is full of hand-chosen items from local designers and makers. We're talking terrariums, quality leather goods, candles, wall art, magazines and ceramics of sad little lions — all of the things you don't really need, but definitely want.
On the media front, Happy Valley stocks a wide range of vinyl records and books. The books cover all sorts of topics, both fictional and non-fictional — coffee table-destined titles, thought-provoking novels and insightful hardcovers in equal frequency.
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Hares & Hyenas, St Kilda
Tucked under the stairs of the Victorian Pride Centre in St Kilda, Hares and Hyenas has a wide range of available titles, but specialises in and prioritises queer, gender and sexuality-diverse literature and has done so for the better part of 35 years through various storefronts. But in 2021, it relocated its consolidated collection to the St Kilda location.
Here, it deals in all the colours of the literary rainbow, with a collection of fiction and non-fiction releases alongside coffee-table books, erotica, CDs and DVDs, magazines, cards and tickets to major queer events.
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The Chestnut Tree, Footscray
For West Footscray, hitting up the local bookstore means coming to this beloved Barkly St storefront, where shopping is about more than just filling a cart and getting on your way. The Chestnut Tree team ensures that this isn't a soulless retail experience. The selection, some 10,000 titles strong, doesn't exist to keep customers happy; it's a deliberately curated lineup where every dollar spent does some good. With every purchase, The Chestnut Tree plants trees in bushfire-affected land and donates to relief organisations working in Gaza.
Beyond the shelves, The Chestnut Tree runs an on-site cafe that serves locally roasted coffee alongside matcha, tea, biscuits and other treats. It's also home to an events program of book clubs, workshops, author events and more. You can also support the store from home through book subscriptions, where you pick a theme and receive monthly book deliveries for the year that follows.
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Brunswick Bound, Brunswick
A far cry from the retail chain bookstores you might find in the CBD, Brunswick Bound channels a far more independent spirit from its Sydney Road storefront. Having opened almost 20 years ago, it's become a fixture of the local creative community, thanks partly to its eclectic in-store collection of books, vinyl, stationery, jewellery and gift-suitable knick-knacks and doodahs — but also because of the active partnerships it runs with local businesses.
Brunswick Bound's events program invites authors and local food and drink businesses into the same space — especially in its Eat the Book series, where cookbook authors come for live cooking demonstrations served with drinks and free copies of their latest release for attendees.
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Amplify Bookstore, West Melbourne
If your literary collection feels a touch uninspired, Amplify Bookstore is the place you need to visit for your next purchase. Based in West Melbourne, Amplify is an antiracist social enterprise bookstore that exclusively stocks titles by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of colour) authors. Here, dark green walls and white shelving carry underrepresented voices, and customers are encouraged to diversify their bookshelves.
The selection, which ranges far and wide across fiction and non-fiction, also comes with a generous selection of pre-loved titles looking for new shelves to call home. And should you find yourself feeling stumped, the Amplify team offers a number of bundles and subscriptions. The bi-monthly Discovery Pack lets you select two titles from curated selections to be delivered, while Region Boxes highlight the voices of specific continents, and the Supercut Box will see the Amplify team pick three books for you based on your provided preferences.
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North Melbourne Books, North Melbourne
Another passion project-turned literary community masthead, North Melbourne Books is owned and operated by Chris Saliba and Chris Hubbard — North Melbourne locals both, who turned their adoration for books into a physical space. That was over a decade ago, and now North Melbourne Books is a Queenberry Street icon.
Together, the Chrises compile a handpicked stock of titles. It's a fairly even split of fiction and non-fiction, with a dedicated space for children's books that lets parents sit down with young readers to flip through some pages together. A regular monthly e-newsletter keeps loyal customers appraised of what the staff are reading, but this is a brick-and-mortar operation first and foremost — so come in and see what all the North Melbourne readers love so much.
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Kay Craddock Antiquarian Bookseller, CBD
For the vintage book lovers, Kay Craddock Antiquarian Booksellers is like a dream ripped straight off the pages of a Victorian drama, and that's just the interior. If you're looking for the hottest new releases, Kay Craddock isn't the store for you. But are you after an elusive novel that was actually published and printed in the Victorian era? You've got some pretty damn good odds of tracking it down here.
Established as a family business in 1965, it has moved through a number of storefronts but is currently at home in the Assembly Hall building on Collins St, an appropriately dramatic space for a collection as rich as this. Books cover a broad range of fiction and non-fiction topics, but it's the span of publishing dates that makes it exciting, with everything from classic Australiana poetry and classic 90s sci-fi novels to a Roman treatise published in the 16th century. Browsing these shelves means to not only travel the world but the span of recorded human history.
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The Paperback Bookshop, CBD
Perched at the top of Bourke Street hill since the 1960s, the Paperback Bookshop seems untouched by time. Small, dark and cosy, this independent store makes any book-buying experience intimate and memorable. Though we wouldn't suggest sticking around to cheekily read the first chapter of your purchase onsite — there simply isn't room.
Fitted out with old wooden shelves, The Paperback is stacked full of classic and contemporary titles of both the fiction and non-fiction variety. With space being such an issue, each title is lovingly selected, giving a beautifully curated range. Pop by on your lunch break (Pellegrini's is next door), and grab one of the shop's suggested favourites, i.e. not what you've seen go gangbusters on Goodreads.
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Readings St Kilda, St Kilda
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 (and the original), the St Kilda bookshop also has iconic origins (formerly the site of independent bookshop Cosmos). What's more, famed musicians Paul Kelly and Nick Cave have been known to peruse the stacks here, so you know you'll be in pretty good company.
There's a wide range of genres to choose from, including history, art and design, travel, literary fiction and the like from both Australian and international authors. Plus, the St Kilda bookstore also keeps a rare and impressive collection of books from independent publishers. With the sheer amount of reads to choose from, you're bound to find something great to sink your teeth into.
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Sun Bookshop, Yarraville
Yarraville's Sun Bookshop is what boutique bookstore dreams are made of. Tucked into the former candy bar at the art deco Sun Theatre, the shop sells everything from a curated selection of fiction, biography, history, travel and crime, through to art, design and photography books — plus a fun selection of artistic cards. It is a clear frontrunner for the title of best bookshop in Melbourne.
And like the best bookshops, this one also hosts a regular calendar of author talks, book launches and a monthly book club, so you won't lack opportunities to feed your addiction to printed matter. What's more, Younger Sun — now back within the Ballarat Street bookshop — is a dedicated collection of heart-warming children's books ready to inspire and entertain.
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Metropolis Bookshop, CBD
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 Metropolis Bookshop swoops in. This independent CBD bookseller specialises in titles on graphic design, architecture, photography, popular culture, fashion, film, music and art. It's also as pretty as a picture, with an interior that could feature in any of the design books sitting on its shelves.
If you're chasing that perfect coffee table read, hunting a gift for someone who has everything or just prefer a few more pictures in your evening reads, Metropolis bookstore beckons. As any boutique book store should be, it's a tad hard to find, so best to use Google Maps to get to this one — unless you're well acquainted with Curtin House and its many levels.
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Avenue Bookstore, Richmond
Unafraid of bucking the trend, Avenue Books is a small paradise for book lovers that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Originally opened in Albert Park in 1986, the independent Melbourne bookshop expanded to encompass a second Elsternwick store in 2012 and then a Richmond outpost in 2016.
The Richmond shop focuses heavily on fiction, art books and children's literature, with both local and imported titles among its impressive selection. Friendly and knowledgeable, the staff will lend a hand finding and recommending books across all genres — there are even dedicated children's book experts on the team.
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Verso Books, Healesville
Located in the scenic town of Healesville, this charming regional store is built on a fierce love of great books. Less than seven years old, but already with one expansion under its belt, Verso Books is a complete bookworm's haven — the kind of warm, inviting space in which you'd happily lose an afternoon.
Here, explore an expert curation of titles covering everything from craft to crime, and from parenting to poetry. The staff are pretty handy with the sage book advice, too, whether you're after the perfect present or hunting a new tome for your own bedside table. Throw in a great collection of magazines, gifts and games, and you've got yourself a one-stop shop that's brimming with top finds.
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The Little Bookroom, Brunswick East
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. Named after an award-winning collection of short stories by Eleanor Farjeon, it was created as a dedicated children's bookstore and now sits happily in Fitzroy North Village, fitted out with the very same bookshelves as that original store.
It's an oasis for budding young bookworms, with an expansive curation of kids' books, graphic novels and young adult fiction, guaranteed to delight small readers with big imaginations. There's also a handy selection of informative titles aimed at parents, and a jam-packed event program running from book chats to interactive storytime sessions.
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Top image: Perimeter Books by Anu Kumar.
