Boundless Books on Oxford Street, Leederville opens a new chapter

“Thank God it’s not another ice-cream store!”

That’s what Allyce Cameron has been hearing since she opened Boundless Books on Leederville’s Oxford Street among, it must be said, an unusually high number of ice-cream and frozen yoghurt shops.

“Obviously everyone loves ice-cream but there’s only so many stores you can have,” she said with a laugh.

The owner of Perth’s newest independent bookstore opened on Saturday amid a cost-of-living crisis, a national decline in reading and at a time when bricks and mortar continues to struggle against the convenience of online shopping.

According to last year’s report from the European and International Book Federation 64 per cent of Australians bought a book in the past 12 months compared to an average of 72 per cent across 19 countries surveyed. And only 80 per cent of Australians read a book in the past year, below the 85 per cent international average.

But Ms Cameron is optimistic that Perth people want the experience of browsing in a real store, rather than the impersonality of staring at a screen.

Ms Cameron, who previously worked at Dymocks Morley, is also heartened by the way TikTok and Instagram — “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” for the uninitiated — have got young people excited about reading.

“I know that it (book sales) has been pretty flat Australia wide because of cost of living and people being conscious about what they spend,” she said.

“But the WA market particularly has been fairly steady. There’ve been a few indie bookstore open and more to come. People want to get the experience of going into the indie bookstore and being able to browse, rather than finding things online.

“I feel like Amazon readers know exactly what they’re after, whereas the people coming in are hoping to be inspired.”

Boundless Books is close to the site of the former Oxford Street Books.

That shop closed in 2018 at the same time as a number of independent store closures saw the mix of the Oxford Street strip tilt away from retail in favour of cafes restaurants and, yes, ice-cream shops.