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Woodend Bookshop THIS IS THE LIVE BOOKSHOP PAGE
A much loved feature of Woodend is the local second hand bookshop with more than 17,000 items

August is Children's Book Month at the Woodend Bookshop!On the bargain table outside, for a mere $1, is an expanded coll...
07/08/2026

August is Children's Book Month at the Woodend Bookshop!

On the bargain table outside, for a mere $1, is an expanded collection of books for children and young adults.

Included in our collection is beloved international bestselling children's series Diary of a Wimpy Kid, its simplistic art, relatable characters and humour entertaining kids for over twenty books.

For a more local story, Specky Magee is a series perfect for athletic young teenagers, detailing the complicated life of a young talent in Victoria's favourite sport, partially written by renowned football player Garry Lyon.

Finally, for the older audience of young adults, we have books like Neal Shusterman's Scythe, a sci-fi teen dystopia in the style that became increasingly popular after The Hunger Games. Rising to the top of that fiercely competitive era and genre, Scythe has been lauded as one of the Top 100 Best YA Books of All Time by Times, for its thought-provoking setting and thrilling plot.

If you're interested in one of these books, or any other book in our large collection, come down to the Woodend Bookshop, and peruse the bargain table to your hearts content.

A note to book-clubbersRecently, Woodend Bookshop hosted a book club group who came from Melbourne to sample our stock o...
17/07/2026

A note to book-clubbers

Recently, Woodend Bookshop hosted a book club group who came from Melbourne to sample our stock of more than 17,000 books. How about arranging for your group to make the journey.

Woodend Bookshop is short walk from Woodend railway station, sited near the clocktower. We are open all days, including the weekend, from 10-4. If you like the idea of visiting a scenic town in Macedon Ranges for lunch, a stroll and a browse, the bookshop will welcome you.

As a side note, you might like to inquire as to whether we have your book club selection in stock. Our prices for secondhand books are usually $8 for paperbacks and $10 for hardcovers. Postage is $10, but then you may like the trip out here to pick it up!

July is Cookbook Month at the Woodend Bookshop For the entire month, our extensive catalog of cookbooks, one filled wit...
17/07/2026

July is Cookbook Month at the Woodend Bookshop

For the entire month, our extensive catalog of cookbooks, one filled with a variety of unique and flavourful recipes from cuisines all around the world, will be on the bargain table outside, available for only $1.

If you're in the market for a good cookbook at a steal, then come down to the Woodend Bookshop and peruse.

Mad Mabel - Sally HepworthMad Mabel is the 2026 Australian Book Industry Award winner in the General Fiction category fr...
21/06/2026

Mad Mabel - Sally Hepworth

Mad Mabel is the 2026 Australian Book Industry Award winner in the General Fiction category from Sally Hepworth, a New York Times best-selling author from Melbourne. A darkly funny and twist-filled story, Sally Hepworth explores death, murder and its consequences at its least expected, but most enjoyable hands, that of little girls, and old ladies.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is an eighty-one-year-old living on an idyllic Melbourne street, with a past that she has worked so, so hard to conceal. One day, she finds a body, the neighbour she liked least, dead, seemingly from natural causes.

Mabel Waller is a young girl, surrounded by death and trauma from too young an age. In the ruins of a shattered childhood, Mabel Waller becomes the youngest Australian ever convicted of murder, institutionalised and punished.

As the past of Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is exposed in suspicion of a new murder, the media, journalists and true crime YouTubers alike descend upon 'Mad Mabel,' her past, and the suspicion that she just murdered her neighbour.

Written in a charming, horrific tone, Mad Mabel jumps through time, exploring the past and present concurrently in an inventive and gripping manner, drip feeding the reader twists and turns in a way that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Mad Mabel is another success from Sally Hepworth; deserving all the awards and praise it has already gotten and more. I could not recommend the book more highly.

Woodend Winter Arts Festival 2026Once again, Woodend Bookshop sold books by the participants in the Words & Ideas portio...
19/06/2026

Woodend Winter Arts Festival 2026

Once again, Woodend Bookshop sold books by the participants in the Words & Ideas portion of the WWAF. If you missed out on getting a book you were interested in; or were unable to attend at all, we still have copies of the following books in stock:

Just Saying - Hugh Mackay
A warm and witty exploration and musing on twenty-five famous sayings from great thinkers across the world.

The Way We Are - Hugh Mackay
A detailed psychological and sociological picture of Australian society by one of our most acclaimed social psychologists.

Look After Your Feet - Rosalie Ham
A darkly ironic and humorous look at growing older, and the wisdom that comes even as your body deteriorates.

The Patchwork Bicycle - Maxine Beneba Clarke
A joyous, award-winning children's picture book celebrating religion and inclusion from one of Australia's most celebrated authors.

We Know A Place - Maxine Beneba Clarke
A lovely, genuinely magical picture book celebrating the bookshops everywhere, and the special place they can hold in children's hearts.

The women - Kirsten HannahWatching the television series MASH is good background for this view into nursing within a med...
24/04/2026

The women - Kirsten Hannah

Watching the television series MASH is good background for this view into nursing within a medical unit in a combat zone. Not the black humour but the chaos of dealing

with helicopter loads of badly wounded. Frankie comes from a well-to-do family that celebrates its male war heroes. When a friend of her brother’s seeds the idea that women can achieve as well, Frankie decides to volunteer as a nurse in the Vietnam War. Her naivity and the intense comraderie that becomes a defence to the trauma of being constantly on-call and working long hours in dire circumstances. Frankie’s good-girl status is challenged in the ‘but we may die tomorrow’ socialising in the camp.

Hannah evokes the steaming jungles, the makeshift medical camp, the random mayhem, but tempers it with Frankie’s relationship with two strong women. The quickly-flowing narrative is engaging and believable, reflecting considerable research into the era and issues surrounding the war for the US. EI

James - Percival EverettWritten with the perspective of more than a century since its source material Huckleberry Finn b...
22/04/2026

James - Percival Everett

Written with the perspective of more than a century since its source material Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Percival Everett’s take on the plight of black slaves is far darker. The early part of the book traces the same steps as the original, in some cases almost a plagiarism as the dialogue and setting is so similar. There is one amusing twist at the start as Jim tutors young black children in the correct approach in dealing with whites, that is: use a special lingo, always be subordinate, never question, always make the master look superior. Secretly, among themselves blacks speak like anyone else. Jim, has educated himself by sneaking into Judge Thatcher’s library at night and thus argues with the Enlightenment philosophers and makes a big deal of recording his experience.

The cruelty and dehumanisation is graphically depicted, particularly in the second part where the story veers from the original and become Jim’s. For example, a slave is whipped and lynched for stealing a pencil. In his quest for freedom Jim becomes militant and renames himself James.

Everett creates a believable, well-paced narrative with many changes in fortune. In Jim/James a character of heroic proportions has been created, who stands in stark contrast to the whites of the dominant culture. EI

Huckleberry Finn - Mark TwainI wanted to read James by Percival Everett, but, since it uses Mark Twain’s classic as its ...
20/04/2026

Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

I wanted to read James by Percival Everett, but, since it uses Mark Twain’s classic as its launching point, I felt I needed to read Huckleberry Finn first. In short, the book is a very good tale for the most part. Set in the pre-Civil War period in the US, a sympathetic focus is given to the plight of black slaves. The cruelty of breaking Jim’s family up and selling them to different new owners is the starting point. Throughout the book rebellious, but caring Huck Finn contrives to protect and free Jim. A simple escape on the river and a potentially idyllic life going downstream on a raft is interrupted by two comical charlatans, who betray Jim into slavery again. An unbelievable twist of fate reunited Huck with Tome Sawyer and that’s where the story degenerates with Tom’s fabulous imagination and manipulation of Huck creating silliness. The happy ending here is that Jim, as a possession is given his freedom in the will of his owner. EI

Katabasis by R.F. KuangIn the Faculty of Magic at Cambridge University two exceptional postgraduate students, Alice and ...
05/04/2026

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

In the Faculty of Magic at Cambridge University two exceptional postgraduate students, Alice and Peter, are under the supervision of the highly esteemed Professor Jacob Grimes. When a spell goes wrong and Grimes is evicerated and his soul goes to Hell, the two students, separately, each blame themselves and both take a risky journey to bargain back his soul so that they may complete their degrees to start their own academic careers.

Kuang is a highly imaginative author. She has researched the literature on Hell and extemporised around it to create a believable journey to the place where souls come to terms with the end of their existence before possible reincarnation. The search for Grimes is a revelation about the supervisor’s exploitation of his students. It is also a journey in the relationship of Alice and Peter.

The book, Kuang’s sixth novel, began as a “silly" idea about "academia as hell”. She wrote it while studying her PhD at Yale and discovered it actually is a kind of hell. Her experience lends genuine authenticity to the descriptions of the above ground real academic world, and the struggle of souls underground to publish truthful justifications of their lives. This is an engaging, enjoyable read with believable main characters and a cast of quirky underworld figures.

EI

For Woodend Bookshop, March is Children's Book's Month!For the entire month of March, far more of our expansive collecti...
25/02/2026

For Woodend Bookshop, March is Children's Book's Month!

For the entire month of March, far more of our expansive collection of second-hand books for children and teens will be placed upon the tables out the front of our store for only $1 a book.

If you're interested, come around and have a quick look through our large collection.

Address

104 High Street

3442

Opening Hours

Monday 10:00 - 16:00
Tuesday 10:00 - 16:00
Wednesday 10:00 - 16:00
Thursday 10:00 - 16:00
Friday 10:00 - 16:00
Saturday 10:00 - 16:00
Sunday 10:00 - 16:00

Telephone

+61448661373

Website

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