About us

The Known World Bookshop started life in 2001 as Buninyong Books, located in the small historic former goldmining township of Buninyong. In September 2008, we relocated to an 1880s Victorian building in the gracious city of Ballarat, country Victoria.

Today the Known World Bookshop has one of the region's best collections of hand-selected quality secondhand and collectible out-of-print books, and an espresso coffee bar.

If you can drag yourself away from the computer terminal, you really should try to find your way to Ballarat - it's a delightful city, with plenty of attractions for visitors - views, walks, great little B&Bs, historical buildings and beautiful gardens.

We are proud of our ever-growing collection of interesting and out-of-print titles. There's a little bit of everything on these shelves - literature, general history, Australian history, biography, classics, philosophy, modern classics, etc. There is also a wonderful collection of children's literature - both contemporary and classics. Whilst nothing compares with actually browsing the shelves and locating that long-searched for out-of-print title, we make every endeavour here at The Known World Bookshop to ensure that your online experience resembles as closely as possible the experience of actually visiting our shop. Enquiries are answered promptly and courteously, and when ordered, books are carefully packaged and despatched either the same day or the next working day.

Click on this link to view a slideshow of our new shop