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Hard to Find Secondhand Books Online
Find rare books in our online catalogue or in store
The Hard to Find Books Online website debuted in 1998 with Shaz Craig as foundation manager. Originally, its purpose was to give a wider audience to selected books from the Onehunga shop.
Now you can find over 100,000 books in our online catalogue, plus our books are listed on overseas websites - with a worldwide following keeping an eye on what we offer.
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What you can expect to find in our online bookshop is internationally competitive prices for a huge range of books that cover most subjects imaginable. For the collector of rare or valuable books and first editions, through to those wanting car manuals (we have the largest second hand range online in New Zealand) or an affordable good old-fashioned read, Hard to Find often has books that have faded from public view…and here’s the place where you might find them.
Good books are hard to find and Hard to Find Books are good books.
 The legendary Hard to Find Secondhand Bookshop, Onehunga
The very first Hard to Find (But Worth The Effort) Quality Secondhand Bookshop opened in 1984 when Warwick relocated a small part of his book collection to a basement in the south Auckland suburb of Onehunga. Intended as a supplement to Hard Echo Press, the shop was a popular success and moved to a street frontage in 1988.
At one point there were eight businesses in five cities, but with a change of direction we are now the original Onehunga, Auckland store and a new store which opened in Dunedin in August 2013 and doubled in size in 2014. This internet website is now based in Dunedin and all internet stock is held there.
With its own dedicated staff and 90,000+ books which are not on-line, the Onehunga shop is an adventure to wander around, perusing the shelves and piles of books to see what you can discover. What you do need to know is that the books in the shop won’t be found in our online shop and vice versa.
 Warwick Jordan – the founder
behind the bookshop
Warwick is obsessed about books and reading. His love of literature started when he was young - he won a writing prize at the age of ten - and has continued well beyond his five years at Waikato University where he gained a Masters in Literature.
After a slight career deviation into high rise window cleaning and three years on PEP East Coast Bays Council labouring scheme where he began as a labourer and ended up the only non-tradesman supervisor, Warwick continued his love affair with books managing a bookshop in Victoria St market for a couple of years before developing his own hand-operated letterpress printing and publishing business, Hard Echo Press, originally started in 1978.
Hard Echo Press has been on hiatus since 1991, but The Hard to Find Bookshop has consolidated its presence as one of New Zealand’s best secondhand bookshops, and Warwick is currently concentrating on Hard to Find Books Online and developing the Dunedin store... which he hopes will include a railway system inside it, with trains traveling between rooms via tunnels in the walls. One thing that never changes is Warwick’s passion for the treasure hunt to find books that excite both readers and collectors.
With his years of experience he knows the value of books as pleasurable acquisitions or as old friends, and also from a commercial viewpoint (often intrinsic value can be at variance with financial value, and in warwick's opinion nothing trumps sentimental value).
The Auckland bookshop is managed by Shalon Ewington who does the day to day buying for the business. She joined us full-time in 1988 and has been Warwick's trusted right arm ever since (but no, they are not a couple).
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“When you sell a man a book you don't sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life.”- Christopher Morley
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