Bookstores in Johannesburg
Johannesburg, Gauteng has 40 bookstores on the map. That's 40 bookshops mapped around Johannesburg, each with its own shelves and specialties. The used sections are where the real bargains hide. Give yourself an hour minimum — bookshops are the one errand that always takes longer than planned.
This guide covers every bookstore we could verify in and around Johannesburg (within about 40 km), built from OpenStreetMap's community-maintained data. Names you'll run into include Bridge Books and Van Schaik, plus Love Books. If a bookshop's missing from Johannesburg's list, it probably just hasn't been mapped yet.
The Johannesburg bookstore lineup
40 mapped within about 40 km:
Bridge Books
Bookstore0.1 km from Johannesburg
Bridge Books — Bookstore.
Johannesburg
Van Schaik
Bookstore1.5 km from Johannesburg
Van Schaik — Bookstore. Also worth knowing about Van Schaik: the map lists its hours as Mo-Th 08:00-16:30; Fr 08:00-15:30.
Hours: Mo-Th 08:00-16:30; Fr 08:00-15:30
Love Books
Bookstore4.3 km from Johannesburg
Love Books — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore6.4 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Botanical Gardens Bookstore
Bookstore6.8 km from Johannesburg
Botanical Gardens Bookstore is Bookstore.
House of Judaica
Bookstore7.4 km from Johannesburg
House of Judaica is Bookstore.
Books @ Norwood
Bookstore7.5 km from Johannesburg
Books @ Norwood is Bookstore.
CNA
Bookstore8.1 km from Johannesburg
CNA — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore8.2 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore on Nicol Road, Eastgate Shopping Centre, Bedfordview. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Nicol Road, Eastgate Shopping Centre, Bedfordview, 2007
Books Galore Linden
Bookstore8.5 km from Johannesburg
Books Galore Linden is Bookstore. Books Galore Linden also notes on the map: a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
Phone: +27 11 888 0760
Exclusive Books
Bookstore8.5 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore on Smith Road. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Smith Road
Exclusive Books
Bookstore8.9 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
CNA
Bookstore9.8 km from Johannesburg
CNA — Bookstore, found on Kloof Road in Germiston.
Kloof Road, Germiston, 2008
Cum
Bookstore10.4 km from Johannesburg
Cum — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore10.5 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore10.8 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Books Galore
Bookstore11.0 km from Johannesburg
Books Galore is Bookstore.
Cosmic Comics
Bookstore11.2 km from Johannesburg
Cosmic Comics — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore13.8 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip; it has a website with more detail.
Phone: +27873570027; +27 11 798 0210
Book Galore Greenstone
Bookstore13.8 km from Johannesburg
Book Galore Greenstone is Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore14.0 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Books Galore
Bookstore14.1 km from Johannesburg
Books Galore is Bookstore.
Books Galore
Bookstore14.3 km from Johannesburg
Books Galore is Bookstore.
Tales Resold
Bookstore14.9 km from Johannesburg
Tales Resold — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore15.9 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
The Book Shop
Bookstore16.3 km from Johannesburg
The Book Shop is Bookstore.
Copy Shop
Bookstore17.1 km from Johannesburg
Copy Shop is Bookstore.
Books
Bookstore17.4 km from Johannesburg
Books is Bookstore.
Bekker's
Bookstore18.0 km from Johannesburg
Bekker's is Bookstore.
Bargain Books
Bookstore18.7 km from Johannesburg
Bargain Books is Bookstore. Bargain Books also notes on the map: the map lists its hours as Mo-Th 09:00-18:00; Fr 09:00-19:00; Sa 09:00-18:00; Su 09:00-15:00; a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip.
Hours: Mo-Th 09:00-18:00; Fr 09:00-19:00; Sa 09:00-18:00; Su 09:00-15:00
Phone: +27 10 753 2309
CUM Books
Bookstore18.8 km from Johannesburg
CUM Books — Bookstore.
Galore
Bookstore19.6 km from Johannesburg
Galore — Bookstore.
SKOOBS
Bookstore20.2 km from Johannesburg
SKOOBS is Bookstore on 1 Monte Casino Boulevard, Fourways - Johannesburg. SKOOBS also notes on the map: a phone number is listed — worth a call before a special trip.
1 Monte Casino Boulevard, Fourways - Johannesburg
Phone: +27 11 513 2800
Exclusive Books
Bookstore20.6 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
Books & Things
Bookstore20.6 km from Johannesburg
Books & Things — Bookstore.
Books & Things
Bookstore20.7 km from Johannesburg
Books & Things — Bookstore.
Books & Things
Bookstore20.8 km from Johannesburg
Books & Things — Bookstore.
Books & Things
Bookstore20.9 km from Johannesburg
Books & Things — Bookstore.
Exclusive Books
Bookstore21.0 km from Johannesburg
Exclusive Books is Bookstore. Exclusive Books also notes on the map: it has a website with more detail.
ebooks
Bookstore35.2 km from Johannesburg
ebooks is Bookstore.
What the map tells us about bookstores in Johannesburg
2 of the 40 list their opening hours on the map, which is genuinely useful — bookshops keep civilised hours, so the listed ones are usually reliable.
12 have websites listed. Worth a look for events — readings and signings get announced there first.
The Johannesburg bookstore crawl
The efficient Johannesburg bookstore crawl strings these together: Bridge Books, Van Schaik, Love Books, Exclusive Books, Botanical Gardens Bookstore, House of Judaica, Books @ Norwood, and CNA — 40 stops, one logical order. 32 more are listed below.
Bookstore tips for Johannesburg
Browsing in Johannesburg? A little strategy helps:
- Check the events board at Bridge Books. Book clubs, writing groups, story times — bookshops are community centres that happen to sell books.
- Ask about the book club discount at Van Schaik. Many shops discount book-club orders. If your club buys local, everyone wins.
- Read the first page in the shop. The first-page test never lies. If it doesn't grab you standing there, it won't grab you at home.
- Ask for the out-of-print hunters. Some used shops will hunt down out-of-print titles for you. It takes patience, but the find is worth it.
Good to know
We searched about 40 km around Johannesburg — that covers the town itself plus the surrounding communities you'd reasonably drive to. Listings come from OpenStreetMap, mapped by local volunteers, so a brand-new bookstore in Johannesburg can take a while to appear. The 40 above are only as current as the community map. A bookstore that's shut, or a new one nobody's added yet, gets fixed with a single OpenStreetMap edit.
We don't list prices — they change constantly and vary by edition. What we list is the where: real shops, verified by real mappers, in alphabetical order with no favourites.
If you run one of the 40 listed here and something's wrong — a closure, a move, new hours — the fix is the same: update the shop on OpenStreetMap and the correction flows through to this page on the next daily refresh.
Bookstore listings for Johannesburg: 40 mapped from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Photos from Wikimedia Commons contributors; individual photo credits appear in captions. Listing data was last refreshed automatically — verify hours before visiting.