If Canberra is Australia's most well-read city, it follows that we should have the nation's best bookstores. Amelia Dale browses the shelves at four of the city's must-visit stores for booklovers.
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Harry Hartog
The curiously named Harry Hartog is Canberra's newest bookstore, having only opened for business in October 2014, but it's already one of the most popular.
Manager James Redden is coy about the true identity of the character the store was named after, but says that we've all seen the spirit of Harry Hartog when we open up an old book – he's the one who is taking us away from real life to embark on amazing literary adventures.
"We try to use him as a bit of a catalyst for getting the people of Canberra to embrace a new store and a new character that they can make their own," Redden says.
At Harry Hartog you'll find the latest new releases, great cookbooks, and quirky cards and gifts for booklovers young and old, but the store's real speciality is children's books.
"We have a lot of the popular children's books that have always been around, but we want to try and diversify a little bit and have lots of different picture books and books that you don't normally see in a lot of bookshops," Redden says.
"If you teach children about the value of the physical book now, that will continue through the generations.
"We also try to focus on local authors and new and up-and-coming talent. We're really dedicated to teen fiction and young adult fiction too."
Harry Hartog in a book …
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings by Jo Witek
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings is an off-beat children's book that is colourful, quirky, tactile and appealing to readers of all ages, just like Harry Hartog.
A: Shop L38 Westfield Woden, Keltie Street, Woden
Beyond Q
You never know what might be happening when you walk into sprawling basement bookstore Beyond Q. With a buzzing cafe and bar that features everything from underground performance art to live folk music, visitors to the store can grab a coffee, soak up some Canberra culture, or just get lost browsing among the shelves.
Beyond Q opened at Curtin shops 14 years ago, and is now revered by booklovers across the city and even the country, stocking thousands of titles on everything from religion and gardening to history and fiction, supplemented by intriguing ephemera and some quirky pieces of local history – like a desk belonging to Walter and Marion Griffin that resides in the store.
"We've got lots of things like that, that relate back to Canberra and what we're about," owner Simon Maddox says.
"We've got a coat of arms that was in the House of Reps in Old Parliament House. We've got funny things like gas masks from the Second World War, Japanese swords, all sorts of stuff.
"We even got raided by the military police once, and they took away all our military pamphlets."
No matter what your interests are you'll find some new reading material here that you didn't even know existed, from $2 bargain books to first editions worth thousands that are themselves a piece of history.
Beyond Q in a book…
Culpeper's Pharmacopoeia
This remarkable 1653 book on herbs and healing once belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury – just like Beyond Q, it has a lot of character and an incredible story behind it, and it's certainly not the sort of thing you would expect to be tucked away at the unassuming Curtin shops.
A: 44 Curtin Place, Curtin
Canty's
Canty's is, quite simply, paradise for booklovers. The narrow, winding shelves at this Fyshwick store are stacked high with so very many titles that even the most experienced book shopper will no doubt be overwhelmed upon entering – owner Luke Canty estimates that the store's 1.23 kilometres of shelves house much more than 100,000 books.
Canty's was established in the early 1990s as a small, one-room store, and the owners have been slowly expanding it ever since, extending into the building as rooms become available, giving the store a somewhat maze-like quality.
The stock at Canty's is mostly second-hand books with some remainders, which means that you never know what you're going to find there.
"We've got that constant stream of variety. You don't know what's going to turn up on any given day," Canty says.
"I feel like in our own way we bring a little bit of good to the world – getting people reading and enjoying themselves, learning and broadening their horizons and discovering things that they didn't know they needed to know."
Be sure to set aside some serious browsing time before venturing out to Canty's – the books are divided into dozens of subjects as diverse as sci-fi, art, self-help and biography that will keep you browsing the aisles for hours.
Canty's in a book…
The Oxford English Dictionary
Like a modern-day Library of Babel, Canty's has so many books it may well contain all possible combinations of words in the English language. Canty laughs that the dictionary is the only book that can represent the scope of his store.
A: Unit 4-6/59-61 Wollongong Street, Fyshwick
Paperchain
Set on the busy thoroughfare of Flinders Street, surrounded by bustling restaurants and cafes, there's just something about Paperchain that draws in passers-by from all walks of life.
It has been Canberra's premier independent bookstore since the 1980s, a favourite of politicians and tourists alike thanks to its warm, welcoming atmosphere and thousands of impressive titles.
Paperchain stocks every kind of book you can imagine, from pop-up books to political biographies and everything in between, and is particularly renowned for getting all the newest releases and prize-winning reads, and for its beautiful and often hard-to-find art, fashion and photography titles.
Manager Steve Belton says that Australian fiction, children's books, history and cooking are other Paperchain specialties that get customers coming from miles around, and the store is more than happy to order in any weird and wonderful titles you can't find on the shelves.
Paperchain is open late every single night of the week (the store has found that booklovers often tend to be night owls in need of a late night reading fix) and regularly hosts some of the city's best literary events, including book launches and readings from local, national and international authors.
Paperchain in a book…
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Belton says that 2014 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North really epitomises what Paperchain is all about – it's an Australian novel, and represents the cream of the crop in fiction.
A: 34 Franklin Street, Manuka
