This week is the national Australia Book Crawl. Book lovers are given a list of participating book stores for readers to visit during the week. I’ll explain…
Yesterday I walked into the city from South Hobart. It was a very dreary, showery day with big gray skies and rain. I knew if I stayed home I’d fall asleep so I packed the umbrella and hit the pavement.
Hobart has four participating shops. First up was Hobart Book shop in the historic district on the waterfront of Salamanca. Salamanca consists of many historic sandstone buildings from the 1800s.
I was given my ‘passport’ and after looking around the shop I had it stamped. There were quite a few people browsing.
I then passed the waterfront area as I headed towards the city centre.
Shop 2 had me heading up to the central business district to see Richard and Em who run Cracked and Spineless. It is a windowless shop, up some stairs and hidden away in an arcade. They sell a lot of new and used books, many to a young crowd. They successfully market books on Facebook. Everything from classic lit, fantasy, contemporary and outright weird. They are always busy.
From there I walked another block away to a shopping centre called Centerpoint to the more commercial shop, Dymocks. It too was busy and the young women behind the counter were busy with customers. Again I got my passport stamped.
I saved my favourite shop, Fullers until last as I needed to get the passport stamped. Then I had to sign the passport and turn it in.
The passports , once turned in will go into a competition random draw. The prize is a large book pack from Penguin/Random House. I was then given a voucher for a free coffee in their cafe. The store was teeming with customers. The line at the cashiers desk was winding back into the main part of the store. I had to wait a couple of minutes to get a seat in the cafe. I think everyone in Hobart was visiting book shops die to the rainy, dark weather.
I enjoyed my flat white and a heated up berry muffin.
I was told quite a few people are participating in the book crawl which is such a great idea. I watched a few videos of people crawling in Sydney on social. Their list of shops was a bit longer. Our population in Hobart is only 200,000 so to see four very busy shops is something to be happy about.
With a hot coffee and muffin, I put my hood up and headed for the bus. The 5 kms walk from South Hobart and around the city centre was a real mood lifter on such a mild, rainy day.
Did I buy a book? No, not this time. I’m too busy and committed to reading the books I own this year.
I hope my friends here have a chance to have some bookish fun of some sort.
Travellin' Penguin 
The Book Crawl is actually an international event, with cities and regions all around the world joining in. My Blue Mountains bookshop is part of the Blue Mountains Crawl and we have been very busy stamping passports all week, especially as the the glorious Easter weather has turned into cold, rainy days this week and people cannot bushwalk, so they are book crawling instead!
Glad you enjoyed your Hobart book crawl – I’ve been to two of the shops, but didn’t know about the other two, so will save them for my next visit 🙂
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I realised it was international after I posted. I watched some American ones online.
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What a lovely place to have a book crawl! That park, the waterfront, the cool bookstores…and I love the passport stamps. I hope you win the bundle of books.
I asked DeepSeek if there are any book crawls in Los Angeles or California in General. Looks like the big one is in San Diego this weekend. You have to spend $10 at each of the 14 bookstores that you want a passport stamp from! They have a shuttle to take you around…for $100!!!
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Haha only in America. Our book crawl came with a free coffee. The Melbourne book crawl comes with a free book if you get to all the stores but you have a week to do it. Four shops was enough especially on a cool autumn day.☕️🌻☕️
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Yah I like your book crawl better than our “how can we make money off of this?”
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What fun Pam! Thanks for sharing your adventures and the lovely pictures!
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Hobart is a great place to do this because it’s so compact. This looks like fun but when I looked it up, all the bookshops were in inner Melbourne, and not only can I not be bothered going into the city unless I absolutely have to for medical appointments, but also I’d rather support my local bookshops. (Next time I’m on book buying expedition, I’m going to ask them if they had considered participating.)
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Yes, understand. Melbourne is vastly different to our little city.
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I was in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago and a book crawl was exactly what I was after. I was visiting my mother and my son was down from Darwin, but on Monday when we were all free a lot of inner suburban bookshops were closed. In the end we went to Through the Looking Glass in Sassafras in the Hills which had a fair selection and was definitely worth the drive.
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It’s always fun to visit a new bookshop or one not visited often. So much to look at.
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I’m not sure my brother did this, but I’m pretty sure that the Hobart Book Shop in Salamanca is his favourite. If I send a book they’ve read, that bookshop will usually exchange it for them because, I guess the books I send tend to be the sorts of books I read anyhow, but I love knowing that. As you know I’ve also been to Fullers and from that and all your reports it seems like a great bookshop too. This crawl is a great idea.
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I meant to say that the “sorts of books I send tend to be the sorts of books they sell anyway”! Where was my brain when I wrote that!
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When the past owner was there at Hobart book shop I stopped going there when I heard the owner making fun of the books her customers bought. I never went back but new owners now make it more appealing. It is funny how people divide themselves between Hobart shop and Fullers shop. Haha☕️🌻☕️
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