Dead Souls Bookshop

Dead Souls Bookshop is a central city emporium for quality second hand books. With around 20,000 titles in store, this bookshop has titles in almost every genre, from almost every era and at most price points.

Organised by genre, you’ll find that there’s no shortage of pages to flip, pictures to look at and topics to investigate. Robust and notable sections include NZ history, Māori culture, Literature and Philosophy, Natural History and children’s literature.  Also nestled among the shelves are old book presses, letterpress cabinets and artifacts from days gone by.

Owner, Dean, started Dead Souls Bookshop about four years ago. He has spent a lot of time reading himself but these days, as he put it, some of his regular clients are far more serious readers. Regardless of how much time you spend buried in the pages of a book, Dead Souls offers every visitor a bit of that magic that only the best bookstores have. It’s the kind of place where you could spend hours browsing but feel that only a few minutes had passed.

Dean sources the titles found at Dead Souls from various places and often buys entire collections. When he’s not adding to the variety, he designs and handcrafts bookmarks for the bookshop, and publishes small press publications by hand under the imprint Kilmog Press. Take a peek into the shop’s workroom to get a glimpse of what that process entails.

Look up and you’ll notice vintage cover pages adorn the ceilings. Dean hung those himself and they add to the feeling of being completely enveloped in the world of books. Head in for a specific title, a rare find or simply for a new read.