If there’s one thing better than a room full of books it’s a barn full of books and sometimes in New Zealand it’s about knowing where to look as these huge secondhand bookshops are often tucked out of sight on industrial estates or in small towns that you might rattle through on a road trip to a bigger centre.

Xanadu Book Exchange

2C Ashley Place, Papamoa East, Bay of Plenty

Tucked away in a quiet industrial estate with a bright yellow awning is indeed Xanadu. Open everyday other than Sunday and Monday, this secondhand bookshop is huge in scale but modest in price with each book colour coded according to its price bracket and no book over $5. The choice is endless with everything from New Zealand fiction to children’s fiction and an entire roomful of classics. I’ve come away with everything from Persephone books to the Shadow and Bone trilogy. If you want jigsaw puzzles, books or CD’s, then Briar has another premises about 50 metres away and she also runs the cafe at number 29 Ashley Place!

Matamata Districts Bookclub

Behind the Hinuera Hall, 4800 State Highway 29

Don’t be confused by the directions, you’re not aiming for the Hinuera Hall in the 70kph zone as State Highway 29 passes through the small town of Hinuera, you’re looking BEHIND the hall. There’s a huge corrugated iron structure and more often than not, a trailer pulled up on the pavement outside with, for some inexplicable reason, a Winnie-the-Pooh head on it advertising 50 cent books. Walk inside and you’ll find yourself in a maze of shelves with a particularly good selection of non-fiction on a wide range of subjects as well as popular fiction. I’ve come away with a set of Agatha Christie’s before now and also added to my Chronicles of Ancient Darkness collection. With an emphasis on recycling and making reading accessible for their community, the bookclub will sell books on your behalf or it accepts trade-ins. Typically open on afternoons from Friday-Sunday, this barn is a hidden treasure that’s well worth factoring into your travel itinerary.

Ministry of Books

59 Dundas Road, Sanson

Now in all honesty I only stumbled across this place because I was looking for a cream horn (of which more later), but I’m so glad that I did. Contained in this iron-clad barn of a bookshop is a veritable cornucopia of books. Open seven days a week with a friendly team to help you navigate the rows of shelves, there was a brilliant selection of penguin tribands and I came away with some Miss Read books as well as a copy of the selected letters of Gertrude Bell.

Now back to the cream horn, another Sanson gem is Viv’s kitchen. A slice of the 1950’s, Viv’s is decorated in bright colours with formica table tops. They sell up to 200 cream horns a day and in 2020 sold their 200 000th horn! Practice in this case made absolutely perfect with flaky sugary pastry, thick whipped cream and tart raspberry jam. Sanson might just be my new favourite road trip stop!