ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

By the way, amid all the gloom and doom in the book industry, The Spouse and I went to an author talk at a brand new bookstore in central Melbourne yesterday…

Surrounded by books still in cartons and the smell of nice new shelving, we were among their very first customers.  (I bought The Berlin Syndrome and (I’ll probably regret this) Sartre’s What is Literature?)

Why has Embiggen Books moved from Noosa to Melbourne (apart from the better weather)? Could it be because Melbourne is a City of Literature or is it that a bookstore whose owners have a passion for Science finds its natural niche in the home of the Synchrotron?

Here’s what they say on their About Page:

Embiggen Books was born in Noosaville on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland Australia. The only troubling feature of the birth was a few international financial shenanigans, other than this she has been a wonderfully well behaved baby. So on to a few vital statistics. Whilst she has wide interests including Art, Design, DVD documentaries, Fiction, History, Economics, Plays, Poetry, and Philosophy, she is science mad. She has the biggest range of popular science titles in stock in the observable universe, and her technical science books are growing on a daily basis. Not bad for a little independent bookshop. What she doesn’t have on her gorgeous shelves she can usually lay her hands on very quickly so hit us with your enquiries. As well as this she is keen on kit, specifically science kit so check out the gifts and equipment section.

Her parents Mr and Mrs Embiggen have had long interests in evidence based understanding, reason and life, the universe and everything. They have sieved out pseudoscience wherever they smell it so you won’t find new age malarkey in the stock list. We’ll often discuss these things in our blog, so keep an eye out for interesting tidbits. We also produce a regular newsletter to keep you up to date with instore events which we try to video and stick online for those of you unfortunate enough not live nearby. We encourage discussion of these there and would welcome your rational well stated views. 

I admire their initiative and optimism, (not to mention their sense of humour) and I think that niche bookstores like this have a great future if they offer good service and maintain an effective online presence as well.  And I’m giving them this free plug because they are helping to promote scientific literacy in this country, and goodness knows, we certainly need more of that.

So visit their webpage if you can’t visit in person. (But give them a day or two to unpack the rest of the boxes and to update their contact details on the site).

They are not only conveniently up the road from The Wheeler Centre at 197 Little Lonsdale St, they are also conveniently close to a plethora of terrific Greek restaurants which we intend to sample on our next excursion!