New Zealand Bookshops

I have only spent about ten weeks in New Zealand, in trips to Canterbury and Westland, Otago, Southland, and Fiordland, Auckland, the Coromandel, and the Waikato and Kaikoura, Nelson and Marlborough, so this is certainly not an exhaustive list of bookshops. If you have information I can add to this page, please email me.

North Island

The Auckland CBD has a Borders as well as the usual Dymocks and Whitcoulls. More interesting shops include Jason Books (Lorne St), a nicely laid out secondhand shop with a good selection, Unity Books (High St) and, next to the Auckland Art Gallery and specialising in art, Parsons (corner Wellesley and Lorne Sts, Phone: 64 9 3031557, Fax: 64 9 3570877, Email: books@parsons.co.nz). And Auckland University has a fairly typical University Bookshop. [DY, 2005]

Tauranga and Hamilton have Browsers Books secondhand stores.

South Island

Christchurch has some excellent bookshops. Scorpio Books (79 Hereford St) stands out - it lacks the range of the best Sydney bookshops, but is still pretty broad (they had a copy of The Evolution of Insects, for example) and a really comfortable place to browse. [DY, 2006]

Easts Books on High is also nice; there's a big Whitcoulls in the Cashel St Mall; and the Arts Centre bookshop has a good selection of New Zealand books.

There's a cluster of three secondhand bookshops near the junction of Manchester and High streets, including Smith's Bookshop. Arnold's Natural History Books (New Regent St, just behind the big YHA) is great if you're interested in biology or exploration. [DY, 2003]

In Dunedin the University Bookshop (just over the road from the Otago Musuem) is superb, and there's an ok secondhand shop a few blocks to the north. [DY, 2003]

Greymouth has what looked like a reasonable secondhand bookshop. Hokitika has a nice little new bookshop (Kowhai Books) and a St Vincent de Paul's with the usual shelf of books.

Wanaka has a PaperPlus - a newsagent/stationers with books, almost all popular bestsellers. [DY, 2002] Queenstown has no real bookshop that I could find - a bit sad given the range of other shops. [DY, 2003]

Kaikoura has the excellent secondhand shop Endeavour Books (3 West End, 03 319 7549), where I found a copy of the New Zealand Historical Atlas, which I'd been looking for for some time. Blenheim has Perry's Books and Blenheim Bookworld. And in Nelson there's a nice independent bookshop Page & Blackmore, next to a Whitcoulls and a Paperplus, all in a bunch on Trafalgar St. [DY, 2006]

Miscellaneous

Most DOC offices sell some books, though usually only natural history and tourist titles.

You might also be interested in my reviews of New Zealand books.