Brisbane man Luke Earthling spent his mid-20s travelling in his orange Kombi van, on the hunt for sci-fi and horror books. Two decades later, he's finally letting them go.
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Mr Earthling's journey and obsession to find high-quality reads with the best artwork to admire began when he returned to Australia from the United Kingdom in the late 1990s.
"When I was living in the UK, I bought a Kombi and travelled around with it everywhere so when I came to Brisbane, I missed the Kombi and bought another straight away," he said.
"When I get into something, I sort of obsess on it and so for a while I was into reading sci-fi and horror books.
"Back then in the '90s, it was pre-internet, so there was a lot of trial and error and it's not like today where you can get online, search for the best book out there and go from there.
"So I jumped in my Kombi van and drove from Brisbane to Cairns and back, basically stopping everywhere to have a dig through at op shops, sales and any other place I could find.
"It started building from there."
The man with a name surprisingly relevant to his reading habits said his collection had grown to about 2,000 fiction, non-fiction and reference books, some published as early as the 1950s.
"After travelling around and cherry-picking the best stuff I could find, I think now it is time to share it and spread it around for other readers to enjoy," he said.
"It was a way to meet great sort of people out there and the thrill of hunting down these books was fun.
"When you're reading the books, it can be a bit of a chore to read but some authors transcend that in a brilliant way they were doing and that's the type of stuff I have in my collection."
Mr Earthling will be selling his collection on Sunday as part of Australia's Garage Sale Trail, which began on Saturday across the state to encourage people to re-home items to reduce landfill.
There were about 600 garage sales and stalls expected to take part in the two-day event selling various antiques, hand-made dresses and collections.
Mr Earthling said the only time he had previously parted ways with some of his books was when he donated some to Brisbane archives needing original copies.
"It's been through quite a few house moves, I had Archived (Fine) Books come around and took 800 books," he said.
"When it's all good stuff, it’s pretty hard to pick one unlike digging for one good thing."
Mr Earthling said once his hippie days were over and he was no longer sporting hair that nearly fell to his waist, he moved on to his next obsession, collecting classic vinyl.
"I’ve been working in record stores for 29 years and over time I've built up massive collection of records from things like Michael Jackson, Kiss and Beatles," he said.
Mr Earthling said he hoped visitors at his garage sale would enjoy his collection of books as well as the vinyl.
"The surging popularity of vinyl has been great because people are now rediscovering it and young kids are learning about it and appreciating originals."
Mr Earthling is selling his collections with prices from $1 to $60 at his home on Meyrick Street at Cannon Hill.
Visit the Garage Sale Trail website for more information on the other sales in Brisbane.
