Grisly Wife Bookshop (ANZAAB)

The Grisly Wife Bookshop is Australia's largest bookshop specialising in Australian literature. It was established in 2001 and is named after Rodney Hall’s award-winning novel that won the author his second Miles Franklin Award. The shop is unique among Australian bookshops as it stocks new as well as second-hand and rare Australian literature in all its forms—novels, poetry and drama. The shop also has available an interesting selection of rarer Australian non-fiction. Stock is in excess of 15,000 volumes. A feature of the shop is that, with second-hand items, only material in Very Good and better condition is acquired. All dustwrappers have archival quality protectors. The description of condition always notes if a dustwrapper is price-clipped and whether there are previous owner's markings or bookshop labels. A number of major Australian authors, including Helen Garner, Gerald Murnane, Laurie Clancy, Nicholas Jose, Rodney Hall and Carmel Bird—the last two are patrons of the shop—are supporters of the enterprise and most of their works as first editions, reprints, signed copies and recent works are available. The shop caters for the serious collector of Australian literature as well as for individuals with an interest in reading Australian literature. Accordingly, the shop contains first editions of many of Australia’s major novelists, poets and playwrights as well as reprints and in-print editions at affordable prices. John Thawley runs The Grisly Wife Bookshop and has held senior positions at La Trobe University Library and CSIRO. He was also closely involved in collection management at Swinburne University and the State Library of Victoria where he produced that institution’s first published collection management policy. He is an accredited member of the Australian Society of Indexers and has a keen interest in Australian literature. The shop is located in the Eaglemont Village, opposite the Eaglemont train station and which is about 20 minutes from the City Centre. It is open by appointment 9.00am to 5.00pm any day. The shop is open from 10.00am to 1.00pm on Saturday.