Hard to Find rescued

2026-02-01 - 16:09

Deeply loved Auckland second-hand bookstore Hard To Find has snatched victory from the jaws of excommunication. It was served an eviction notice from its Catholic Church premises last year and was facing an end of over 40 years in the trade—but has found new premises, and will open there in March. “I don’t let the bastards get me down,” said manager Warwick Jordan. He is right now in the process of lugging 25kg boxes of books every day to the new store around the corner from its Saint Benedicts St home. He emailed, “We have to be OUT (vacant possession ... and NO signage) by March 15—hopefully we can be open at the new location around the same time.” The new store is in the same building as another cultural institution, vinyl emporium Southbound Records, at 4 Glenside Crescent tucked behind Symonds St in the inner-city suburb of Eden Terrace. It’s a bigger space than his current operation and Jordan estimates the new store will house 220,000 books. Anyone who has poked around the Saint Benedicts store will have noticed a great big shipping container out the back. It’s filled with 150,000 books, which Jordan is transferring to a storage facility in North Waikato. His empire also includes Hard To Find in Dunedin which looks after 670,000 titles. All up, over a million second-hand books: incredible figures, and testament to Jordan’s grand obsession, which has come close to crashing around his ears. He was very nearly finished in 2017 when high rents forced him to leave the Hard To Find store in Onehunga after 37 years. He wrote to Bishop Patrick Dunn, the Bishop of Auckland: “I’m looking for a miracle – I’ve heard you guys do them.” Jordan was able to tell the media at Xmas 2017: “And he provided!” The new shop was opened in June 2018 with a formal blessing from parish priest Monsignor Paul Farme. It was a miracle with a use-by date. Last year Jordan received a terse 83-word eviction notice from James van Schie, general manager at the Catholic Diocese of Auckland. The church wants to sell the building. “I am devastated, heartbroken, stressed, pissed-off, and disappointed,” Jordan said at the time in an interview with ReadingRoom. Jordan thought he was onto a good, lasting thing at Saint Benedicts, once the home of Mary MacKillop, Australasia’s only saint. It had high ceilings, plaster domes, polished floor boards—it had character. Jordan raised $27,000 from Give a Little to help save the business and he used it to move into the new store. He also hiked to the bank for a substantial loan. He said last year that he’d spent “north of $100,000” in renovations. He said this week, “I will always be grateful to Bishop Patrick Dunne for granting us this miracle, and to Michelle Elsmore who was our property manager then. They had an agenda of community spirit and spirituality which respected Saint Mary MacKillop and her legacy (she supported community and education and she funded this building when the Church wouldn’t). “But the Bishop and management team changed not long after we arrived. They have a different agenda ... Their legacy will be one of loss and destruction.” The store turns 43 in April. Jordan’s first Hard To Find opened in John St in Ponsonby, Auckland, in 1983. He said, “I am driven by obsession, enabled hoarding and a need to not fail our customers (both those we sell to, and those we buy from). “I follow my passion and feed it with the support we get from our community. I’m very stressed as to what I can create in the new space – hopefully a shop that our fans and newcomers will enjoy.” The past few years have seen several long-standing second-hand bookstores close down, such as Jason’s Books on High St, downtown Auckland, and Dominion Books on Jervois Rd in Herne Bay, Auckland, while Brett’s Book Exchange on Queen St in Richmond, Nelson, closed in January last year, reportedly marking an end to the region’s last dedicated second-hand bookshop. J Books on Ferry Rd in Woolston, Christchurch, closed in December. The circumstances were sordid. Owner Jason Wales was outed online for historic sex offences; he was jailed in 2008 for grooming a 15-year-old, and meeting her for sex. Jordan referred to the death in 2024 of the great John Quilter, a legend in second-hand bookstore culture in New Zealand as the elegant, tweed-jacketed owner of his amazing bohemian nook Quilter’s at the top of Plimmer Steps in downtown Wellington. “I don’t see anyone of the same calibre.” But there was no one of that calibre when he was alive. It’s enough that great second-hand bookstores remain, such as Piggery on Walton St, Whangārei, and Browsers on Riverside Lane, Hamilton, and Book Hound on Riddiford St in Newtown, Wellington, and Arty Bees on Manners St in Wellington, and Dead Souls on Princes St, Dunedin—and the two Hard To Find stores. Bravo to Jordan for holding the line. “I barely have time to breathe,” he said. “Running on empty, carrying 25kg boxes of books every day when I am not supposed to lift more than 5kg (9 level spinal fusion), limping courtesy of sciatica ... but I am old-school. I don’t let the bastards get me down for long. I harden up and get the job done. And I and my team will do just that.” There was a stirring Churchillian defiance in those words but I preferred his remarks on the sheer joy and possible madness of his operation. “I got two full truckloads of military books last month, and a full truckload of NZ and a full truckload of photography this month,” he said. “You can never have too many books.” Hard To Find is open seven days a week at Saint Benedicts St in Auckland until early March.