A creative and cultural history of Brisbane bookshops by Brisbane writers.

An anthology of creative non-fiction, essays, and memoirs by authors, editors, journalists, poets, historians, librarians, and bookshop owners (past and present).

What readers have found on the shelves of Brisbane bookshops has educated and entertained, informed and inspired them to seek further, to think more deeply, to travel across the world and its past. Since the 1840s – despite fire and floods, bombings and police raids – Brisbane bookshops had fed the imaginations and nourished the learning of many generations of readers and scholars who’ve helped to make the city, the nation, and the future a better place.

The final section of the book contains profiles of the current generation of independent bookshops in Brisbane – new and second-hand/antiquarian; general and specialist.

Edited by Anne Richards and Matthew Wengert, with Bianca Millroy.

Contains writing by: Venero Armanno – Steve Capelin – Matthew Condon – Gareth Dickson – Joanne Dolley – Nick Earls – Phillip Edmonds – Raymond Evans – Simon Farley – Jane Frank – Caroline Gardam – Helen Gregory – Mick Healy – Bruce Heiser – Cheryl Kensett – Jean Kent – Bronwen Levy – David Malouf – Louise Martin-Chew – Bianca Millroy – Sean Phillips – Anne Richards – Julianne Schultz – Nathan Shepherdson – Bill Sutton – Chrissi Theodosiou – Meg Vann – Hugh Watson – Matthew Wengert – John Willsteed.