Auckland's Hard to Find Books Survives With 3x Bigger Space

After fearing he'd have to close down or move to a countryside shed, Auckland bookstore owner Warwick Jordan just secured a massive new location for his beloved Hard to Find Books.

The store, which has served Auckland readers since the 1980s, faced an uncertain future when the Catholic Church put its current building up for sale last June. With nowhere to go and hundreds of thousands of books to house, Jordan worried he'd have to abandon the city entirely or switch to online-only sales.

But Jordan just announced the store found a new home just a few hundred meters away at 4 Glenside Crescent, right next to Southbound Records. The best part? The new space is three times larger than the current one.

"Where we're going is eight and a half thousand square feet," Jordan said. The expanded store will hold between 200,000 and 250,000 books, compared to the current 150,000 to 170,000.

Hard to Find Books moved into the 119-year-old former Catholic convent on St Benedicts Street in 2017, after originally operating in Onehunga. Jordan admits leaving the historic building hurts deeply, saying he put his heart and soul into making it special.

The Bright Side

While Jordan grieves losing the convent's character, the massive new space opens exciting possibilities. He's already planning how to fill it with the quirky decorations and unusual items that made his store stand out from typical secondhand bookshops.

"When I very first started off, secondhand bookshops looked more like public libraries," Jordan explained. He changed that by adding weird and decorative touches that kept customers coming back.

The timing couldn't be better for Auckland's book lovers. The city has watched several beloved secondhand bookstores close in recent years, including Dominion Books and Jason Books.

The store will stay open at its current location until mid-March, gradually shrinking as Jordan packs and moves inventory. He's determined to keep serving customers right up until the last minute, even as the moving process begins.

At roughly 20,000 books, the average New Zealand bookstore holds just a fraction of what Hard to Find offers. Jordan's collection makes his store unlike anything else in the country, and now it's getting room to grow even bigger.