Antique and 2nd hand online bookstore

Welcome to the
Book Fossicker

By Joan Rogers, The Book Fossicker

After spending 10 years successfully running a full-time secondhand bookshop in Warrandyte Victoria, a well-known outer suburb of Melbourne noted for the early discovery of gold in 1851, I have now relocated to a little country town called Clunes in central Victoria, also noted for the early discovery of gold, also in 1851- in fact, there has always been a certain amount of dispute and rivalry as to which town can claim to have been the first.

Clunes however became a huge centre in its heyday being right in the centre of the main gold rush area between Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo, whereas Warrandyte really didn't produce a great deal of gold and its mines were virtually exhausted by the early 1900s. It went on to become a haven for artists and writers.

Clunes is now a popular tourist location and is the host for the annual Book Town bookfair event in May each year, to where dozens of booksellers from Victoria and interstate come to set up their stalls, attracting thousands of visitors.

Although I was selling books online from the shop in Warrandyte under another business name, I started selling books ‘online only’ after I came to Clunes to retire, hoping for a quieter life. However within a couple of years I found a good shop, so opened up to resume my on-street presence, which was very successful for over eight years, until the Covid pandemic hit us all. In early 2021 I regretfully closed this shop to resume selling ‘on-line only’ again.

I chose the name Fossicker partly to reflect the town's gold history and also the ongoing search by booklovers to find that elusive book, which can often only be found by digging around a bit!