The Booklover Bookshop is an independent bookshop at 1 Milford Road in Milford, on Auckland's North Shore. The website says it was named NZ Bookshop of the Year in 2024. It sells hand-picked books, gift vouchers, stationery and a locally made, hand-poured soy candle. The shop also offers book subscriptions, a staff favourites and bestsellers shelf, and a booklover bookclub with book evenings. Bookclub hosting in the shop is being restructured, and the website asks people to enquire through a form. A customer who wants to host a bookclub at the shop should check the form first. Hmm.
Customers praise the helpful staff, the handwritten notes, the kids section and the book wrapping. Several say they never feel hurried while browsing. One customer said the bookshop is the best local independent bookshop, and that the new owner is friendly and welcoming. Others mention book ordering, puzzles and games, and a good selection of new releases and classics. Our pick in Milford for a gift book, a browse, or a bookclub.
The Booklover Bookshop is the kind of place its own website describes with quiet confidence: somewhere you'll find 'excellent book-loving types and top-notch friendly staff', a unique and thoughtful collection of books, gorgeous stationery and a welcoming atmosphere — a place to browse, chat and be inspired. The shop sums up its philosophy in a single line: 'A place for booklovers: our kind of people.' It reads as much like an invitation as a description, and the homepage makes the shop's pride plain: 'Shop with us at NZ's 2024 Bookshop of the Year!'
Walking in feels less like shopping and more like joining a conversation. The collection is deliberately curated rather than exhaustive, chosen by people who read widely and enjoy nothing more than matching the right book to the right person. Alongside the shelves sits gorgeous stationery — the kind that makes writing a letter feel like an occasion again.
One of the pleasures of the shop is its 'what everyone is reading' selection — a live snapshot of what the team and their customers are excited about right now. Recent picks have included The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, The Breath of the Gods, Heir Apparent, Wild Animal, The Bell and the Blade and Good Things Come (and Go), alongside the newly released The American Boys — a wartime novel set in Wellington in 1942, when 20,000 American Marines arrived to keep New Zealand safe and found their new post 'strange and unwelcoming, except for the Kiwi girls…'
The line-up shifts as the team's enthusiasms shift, which is precisely the point. If you'd rather your next read was chosen by an enthusiastic human than an algorithm, start with the staff favourites and bestsellers collection.
The Booklover has built a name for things that don't fit on a shelf. Its book subscriptions are, in the shop's own words, 'truly something special' — hand-picked books delivered to you or the reader in your life, with subscription vouchers easy to redeem online. Gift vouchers come wrapped in the shop's best line: 'A book is a gift you can open again and again.'
Then there's the signature scent. The Booklover candle — hand-poured soy, made locally in New Zealand by Little Batch Wax Co. — aims for 'the perfect Booklover smell: imagine reading by the coast under some trees after an unexpected Auckland rainshower', blending frasir fir, pine, oakmoss, amber and coconut, with a burn time the shop measures at approximately 7 books.
Stuck for a present? Between the staff favourites shelf, vouchers and subscriptions, the shop has quietly solved gift-buying for every kind of reader — the friend who devours thrillers, the parent who only reads on holiday, the hard-to-buy-for in-law who claims to have everything. Asking for a recommendation is very much the house sport.
Reading, here, is treated as a team sport. The Booklover Bookclub throws its doors open to anyone who thinks 'love books? love to yap?', with upcoming evenings listed on the website. Already run a bookclub? The shop can host it — arrangements are currently being restructured, and would-be hosts are asked to enquire through the online form in the meantime.
Beyond club nights there are in-store events, a monthly newsletter carrying new arrivals, staff reviews and special events — 'we respect your privacy, we won't bombard you with e-mails!' — and The Booklover podcast for bookish conversation between visits. A lively Instagram feed at @thebookloverbookshop keeps the conversation going long after you've left the shop.
Whether you visit in person or browse the full catalogue online (shipping information is on the website), the promise is the same: friendly expertise, a genuinely personal selection, and the unmistakable feeling of having found your people.