Bob Gould has been a Sydney bookseller since 1967 and at Newtown since 1988.

Please give us 24 hours notice if possible, if you would like to PICK UP an internet listed book from our shop. All our listed books are stored in non-public areas of our Newtown building. Most of the books are on the top floor. Sometimes there is only one staff member on the counter, so they are unable to leave the ground floor to retrieve books from the top floor. A bookseller with fewer books can probably be more nimble, but customers are attracted by the broadness and richness of our large internet stock.

For MAIL ORDER, we generally go to the Post Office at least every second day, often more. If an order is received by 11.00am Monday to Friday, we hope to find the book that morning, process the order, and send the book up to the packing table. For URGENT books, we can generally do Express Post Satchel on the same day or the next day, as we have the special Yellow Letter Box a pleasant walk down the street. If ordering urgent books after 11.00am, please phone a few minutes later to draw our attention to the order, and we can probably respond on the same day. We have fresh stock arriving constantly, so our staff are engaged in data entry of that new stock, after they have processed the orders in the mornings, so we don't constantly check for new orders throughout the day.

We have been buying publishers' remainders for almost 40 years. Many have increased in rarity and value, like old wine, yet the book is like new, with the covers bright and unfaded when we open a carton which may have been undisturbed for 20 years. We have easy parking outside the shop, and a high public profile in Sydney, so we have many people driving up to the shop each week, to sell us their surplus books. Bob attends all the major book fairs. So we don't have a problem getting NEW STOCK to list on-line.

A VISIT to our shop can be worthwhile, as many of the books in the public areas of the shop will probably never make it to the on-line listing. Our shop is about the size of two singles tennis courts, and the books are in broad subject areas, so allow a bit of time. Newtown, as well as being renowned for its many bookshops, is also known for its great variety of cheap restaurants, and many of our customers make a night of it.

Several European travel guides list the shop as a place to see. As 'Bookshops of Sydney' said: Gould's Book Arcade has 'a range and depth of stock pretty unusual by any standards, including books that you wouldn't get elsewhere' and 'probably has more out of print titles than any other book retailer in Australia.' There are around 300,000 books and records (vinyl) etc. in the public areas of the shop, around 650,000 books in storage, and around 70,000 books on line (see exact figure at right in Book Search section). Most Australian internet booksellers have between five and ten thousand books on line, by way of comparison.

The numbers in brackets after each of our book categories at left, represent the number of books we have in that category. Click on any category to browse our full list. There could be out of print titles that you did not know of, to search by author/title. The default sequence for these lists is most recent title listed at the top. This can be altered by clicking on Price, Publisher, Author or Title.