Hard to Find Books Dunedin — Dunedin Central
A secondhand bookshop in Dunedin Central, Dunedin. Part of the Dunedin & Port Chalmers secondhand bookshops directory — see also our NZ used-book price guide.
No rights-cleared photo yet — our own photos coming soon. Open the map pin for the street location.
About
Hard to Find Books on Dowling Street is the heavyweight of Dunedin’s secondhand book scene and the shop most visiting bibliophiles head for first. It is the southern half of the Hard to Find business (the other branch is in Auckland), and the Dunedin building — once the old Hallenstein’s factory — doubles as the warehouse for the whole online operation. The business describes its combined holdings as running toward a million titles, with around 140,000 books on the two shop floors.
The Spinoff ranked it Dunedin’s best secondhand bookshop in its 2024 roundup, praising the sheer range (“seven different editions of Middlemarch”) and describing labyrinthine upper floors packed with uncatalogued stock. The browsable shop is deliberately different from the website: the online catalogue lives upstairs, so what you see on the shelves rewards walking in rather than clicking.
Open seven days, it is an easy anchor for a central-city book crawl — Dead Souls and the Downtown Book Exchange are a short walk south along Princes Street.
Price tip: The Spinoff (2024) found regular vintage paperbacks at about $7–13; rare and signed titles are priced as collectables.
What you’ll find
Literary fiction and classics in multiple editions, NZ and Pacific history, antiquarian and collectable books, modern first editions, signed copies, vintage paperbacks, poetry, art, travel, military history and general non-fiction. They also buy books and whole collections.
Practical info
- Address
- 20 Dowling Street, Dunedin Central, Dunedin 9016
- Hours
- Daily 9:30am–5:15pm
- Phone
- 03 471 8518
- Website
- www.hardtofind.co.nz
Online listings are held in the Dunedin warehouse, not on the shop shelves — call or email ahead if you want to see a specific online title. Also buys collections.
Visitor notes & reviews
“The best second-hand bookstore in Dunedin has to be Hard to Find Books.”
2024-05 · The Spinoff
“The prices at Hard to Find are extremely reasonable, ranging between $7 to $13 for a regular vintage paperback, and the selection is probably the widest in town.”
2024-05 · The Spinoff