The Proprietors: 

BookSplendour is a small, Internet based family business, bookstore and online art gallery, currently being looked after by three persons and several other creatures.

Where we are:

We are situated on a small acreage lot at Pullenvale, a western suburb of Brisbane, the semi-tropical main city of the state of Queensland, near the eastern coast of Australia. The lagoon in front of the house supports a lot of wildlife, including egrets, cormorants, swamp hens, mallards, and probably even an odd platypus (we haven't seen one yet, they are extremely hard to spot, but we do know that Pullen Pullen creek is the only remaining waterway in the Greater Brisbane area where these fantastic animals are still to be found). Kookaburra wakes us up early in the morning with its laughing, just in time to catch the glimpse of the deer. Have we mentioned the deer? Sometimes they frolic in our yard. We feel privileged to have them here, though we know that the environmentalists don't like them, because they are not native to Australia. But the environmentalists too are an introduced species...

See some images of Australia and its wildlife here

         The lagoon                                        Roxie with a mushroom                                           Cactus in flower    

Our History:

We have been around books, and books have been around us, much longer than we would care to mention. Indications are that even the Junior, who currently studies Journalism at the University of Queensland, is probably destined to staying in close proximity of books in his future life.

When we arrived to Australia from England (see also My Beard, A Short Autobiography), more than 30 years ago, seven large trunks came with us on the boat, containing mostly books. One trunk got lost on the way; fortunately it was the one with the cooking utensils. We could not cook a proper meal for some time, but we did not mind much, so long as our souls were being nourished. Our book collection continued to grow steadily over the years. After three decades of sharing our premises with the stacked bookshelves (which we had to move several times), in August 2002 we finally made the decision to go online. Within a matter of months, what we had thought of as being a very large collection of books, has swelled even more, as more and more and more books are piling up in the library - an awesome sight to book lovers such as we are!

Our Inventory:

Currently we maintain online the inventory of approximately thirteen thousand books, with further ten to twelve thousand on our premises, waiting to be described and catalogued, the task that always looks daunting if not hopeless.

Describing our Books:

Proper book description is certainly of more importance to the prospective buyer who uses the Internet, than to those who can closely inspect the book while shopping in their local brick and mortar bookstore. The Internet buyer has to rely almost entirely on the description provided by the seller, and perhaps on some scanned images that the seller might send them. We are well aware of this problem and therefore we try to be as accurate in our descriptions as we can. 

In case that you are not familiar with the language booksellers use, on the side bar we have provided a link to the glossary of most common terms used by the majority of dealers in second hand books.

Additional Services:

To any prospective buyers, who need more information about a particular book, we offer another service. On request, we gather any additional information we can access, take scans of the book they enquire about, and send the digital images to their E-mail address. We can usually do this within 24 hours after receiving the request.

We might still be able to help our customers, even if we do not have the book in stock. Most books, even those that have been out of print for years, can be located somewhere in the world. Using various search techniques, we can find out if the book is available anywhere in the world, and give you an obligation free quote on how much it would cost to have it delivered. We would also tell you approximately how long it would take to reach you at your address.

How we Price our Books:

To those who like to compare book prices; we always try to price our books most competitively. This means that each book is carefully researched, compared to other titles being offered for sale on the Internet at the time of listing, and priced in accordance to its worth, taking into account how common or how scarce is the title, and what is the general condition of the particular book.

Updating our Inventory:

We try to update our inventory every day, often more than once, thus minimizing the possibility of disappointing our customers by having to cancel their orders due to prior sale of a book they might wish to order. Having said this, we still cannot totally guarantee that all books that appear on any of the sites we list with would always be available. All we can promise is that we do our best to avoid any possible disappointment. We can proudly say however, that our fulfilment rate of orders over the past 2 years has always been on or very near 100%, and it has never dropped below 97%.

Storing our Books:

We keep our books on wooden shelves in a large library room, because we believe that this is the proper place for them, other than the readers' hands or perhaps their bedside table. Currently on our shelves we have room for approximately twenty five thousand books. This means that we could accommodate a few more, but not too many. 

Our Future Plans:

Already we are trying to focus more on the quality of our stock rather than the quantity. This will no doubt become increasingly important to us in the not too distant future...

The Other Important Store Creatures and Pets

Henrietta, the Russian Blue, aged 17       Biggles, the Guardian, aged 3       Teddy, the Birman cat, aged 10

Roxie, the Golden Retriever, aged 1, with some of her toys

Lakshme, the Turtle from Bali, aged about 200

In memory of Zarah, the Newfoundland

BookSplendour 103 Grandview Road Pullenvale, QLD, Australia 4069, tel. 07-3202 7547