Hill of Content Bookshop — Local services in Melbourne

I moved to Melbourne from the US and was happy to see a bookstore near my work place in Longsdale st. I went, picked up two books to buy, and while giving them to the Cashier, I asked her whether the bookstore have the following books, which I knew was published in the States and would take time for it to come to Australia. When the woman looked it up online, she said they don't have it and she can preorder, but then paused and said "we usually wouldn't order books like this for our store". I was a little taken back by that. I can give her a benefit of a doubt, but it is condesending to tell a customer that the type of book I'm interested in is not something they would have in their store. Because of my love for bookstores, whenever I get a chance I try to buy it from a store as opposed to online. It's too bad because I actually would've bought a lot of books from there, but now I'll just resort to online bookopdia. The book that I wanted was called Man Enough by Justin Baldoni, and it's about undefining Masculinity in today's society, not sure why these types of books wouldnt be in a store like theirs? I'm very careful about calling out microaggressions, but as a women of color, I'm a seasoned judge of when it crosses the line. And I definitely didn't feel comfortable hearing that response. So I won't be coming...

Hill of Content is a Melbourne institution and the friendly and dedicated staff who work there are excellent custodians of this wonderful institution. I used to buy a lot of books from Book Depository, but this shop has made me resume buying most of my books from bricks and mortar stores. I used to work across the street from HofC and it was my safe place when I was having a terrible day. Going there and browsing books helped me during some difficult times. I have seen all sorts of people at HofC: Barry Jones, Gareth Evans and even Paul Keating. It’s that...

There are few gems of a book store like this left. Hill of Content Bookshop has serviced melbournians for many decades with its unique selection of books. It's disappointing to see a one star review from someone from the USA who would clearly be more "content" supporting booktopia rather than discover another choice/option. Keep up the great work Hill of Content, if we can't find what we were aiming for we will always have a plethora of other options to explore in your...