What are the opening hours?

Tuesday 10am - 5:30pm Wednesday 10am - 5:30pm Thursday 10am - 5:30pm Friday 10am - 5:30pm Saturday 10am - 5:30pm

Quixotic Books

Home
Australia
Launceston, TAS
Quixotic Books

Quixotic Books is an indie bookstore specializing in titles difficult to find offered in Australia. We sell remainder books, but what are they?

Quixotic Books is an independent bookstore owned and operated by Toby Wools-Cobb, specializing in remainder books rarely found in Australia and historical fiction & non-fiction. Well, when a new title is published the publisher can only guess how many copies are going to sell in a given country and more often than not they print too many. The title may be incredibly popular and sell-out at a bookstore and so they order more, but eventually a title’s opportunity to sell in any given store will be exhausted (e.g. Barrack Obama: A Promised Land) and copies begin to take up valuable real-estate on the shelves. When this happens, bookstores are able to pack up any remaining copies and send them back to the publisher for a refund. This may happen for many bookstores and suddenly the publisher finds themselves with a lot of returned books. Generally, they have two options – either destroy the books to free up warehouse space or resell them at a discounted price. It’s fantastic when they choose the latter because it means we at Quixotic Books can not only afford to bring them from overseas to Australia but also pass on the savings to you! Each book has been personally selected from catalogues of tens of thousands of titles from around the world to come to Tasmania. It’s a big wide world of literature out there, but we see so little despite the online world as most outlets are champing at the latest thing. Remaindered books are a fantastic way to expand your reading oeuvre as they're often niche titles which have slipped passed the eyes of stores all stocking the same bestseller. There’s a catch though; publishers mark these books with a black or red pen along the base of the book to indicate the book’s status as being ‘remaindered’. If you can suffer this sacrilege, then you’ll find yourself in good company.

27/08/2026

19/08/2026

Great to hear people browsing the online catalogue during cosy rainy days!

In-store pickup or free postage across Australia

12/08/2026

Quixotic Books turned 5 years old this week!

Opened in August 2021, Quixotic Books began as a quixotic idea: could I build a bookshop around the joy of finding the unexpected?

I left a fantastic job surrounded by books in libraries so that I could surround myself in… books! Five years later, that still seems like a pretty good decision.

What started as an idealistic, unrealistic and slightly impractical quest (see: quixotic) has become a wonderful little bookshop in Launceston, driven by a passion for history, curious books, hard-to-find titles and the simple pleasure of putting a good book in front of the right person.

I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who has wandered through the door, asked me to track down an elusive title, stumbled across something they weren't expecting, recommended the shop to a friend, or simply stopped for a chat.

Thank you for five years of supporting this strange little experiment in independent bookselling, and for making it possible for me to spend my days surrounded by books.

Here’s to the next five!

23/07/2026

Curious Novels

A great part of ordering books for QB is coming across novels, short stories, or other such fiction where the author is doing something unusual and fun with storytelling.

I like when I read a blurb and have a, "huh," moment, whether the author is taking a genre in a new direction or defying genre and expectations, it's great to see.

At Quixotic Books we have a few bookcases set aside for Curious Novels for the reader looking for something different. I hear back from customers about this section the most, having come across the unexpected, and it's become a star area of the bookshop.

17/07/2026

11/07/2026

We've created a bookcase at QB for Tasmaniana items we come across here and there in our life as booksellers.

For specific requests, please use our Book Finder form on our website.

09/07/2026

Quixotic Writers' Group - Expression of Interest for 2027

Quixotic Books is launching a regular writers’ group at the bookshop in 2027, and we’d love your input using the questionnaire linked below.

We’d like to build it around your interests and needs, whether you’re an experienced writer, someone just starting out, or simply curious about writing, we’d love to hear what would make a writers’ group enjoyable and worthwhile for you.

Quixotic Writers Group is a friendly creative writing community meeting in a welcoming bookshop in Launceston, Tasmania. We welcome writers of fiction, poetry, memoir, and non-fiction of all experience levels. Share your work, receive constructive feedback, develop your skills, and connect with fell

25/06/2026

Ongoing venture, unpacking the bookshop; filling up table displays and closing those gaps in the bookcases.

Going through my storage room, I've discovered an embarrassing number of books which I'd thought I'd already sold the last copy ages ago.

It's like meeting an old friend. Trying not to put a few aside for myself!

20/06/2026

Open Sunday 10:00 - 4:00 tomorrow

Happy reading!

Address

108 George Street
Launceston, TAS
7250

Opening Hours

Tuesday	10am - 5:30pm
Wednesday	10am - 5:30pm
Thursday	10am - 5:30pm
Friday	10am - 5:30pm
Saturday	10am - 5:30pm

Website

http://quixoticbooks.com.au/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Quixotic Books posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Quixotic Books:

Want your business to be the top-listed Shop in Launceston?