The Clocks Bookshop is an independent bookshop on Normans Road in Strowan, Christchurch. Open Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am to 4pm (closed Sundays and public holidays), it serves local readers with a friendly, well-chosen range that stretches well beyond its size.
The shelves cover fiction, young adult and children's books, non-fiction, travel and nature writing, practical gardening, and fashion, art, design and photography. Food and Drink is a standout, with everything from Jamie Oliver quick-cook titles to Italian, Thai and vegan Asian cookbooks and everyday baking, while Crime and Mystery brings together the Rebus novels behind BBC One's REBUS, the Shetland series and vintage-style whodunits. A dedicated Dyslexia Friendly range for dyslexic and reluctant readers reflects the shop's belief that books should be for everyone.
You can browse in person, order through the website with Click & Collect, or have books shipped anywhere in New Zealand — free over $30 in Christchurch and Canterbury, free over $75 for the rest of NZ, $7.50 otherwise. Gift vouchers, the 'Minutes' newsletter and a Design a Bookmark Competition round out a shop that's very much part of its neighbourhood.
The Clocks Bookshop occupies a modest stretch of Normans Road in Strowan, Christchurch, and does quietly what the best neighbourhood bookshops have always done: it puts good books within easy reach of the people who live and work around it. There's no gimmick here — just well-chosen shelves, a friendly welcome, and stock that changes often enough for regulars to pop in and see what's new. The shop is open Monday to Friday from 9:30am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am to 4pm, closing on Sundays and public holidays, and it answers its own phone: 03 355 0995.
The categories tell you a lot about the place. Fiction and Young Adults sit alongside Children's, Non Fiction, Travel Writing, Nature Writing, Practical Gardening and Fashion, Art, Design & Photography. The Food and Drink shelf is a highlight in its own right: recent arrivals have included Jamie Oliver's rapid-cook '20 Minute Meals' and veggie titles, 'Italian Home Cooking' drawn from every region of Italy, 'Cooking Thai' built from a chef's kitchen notebooks, 'The Vegan Asian Kitchen' with more than 100 plant-based recipes, protein-focused fitness cooking and everyday baking from the creator of Beatrix Bakes.
Crime and Mystery is taken just as seriously. The shelves hold the Rebus novels that inspired BBC One's REBUS, the Shetland series, vintage-style mysteries such as 'The Fabulous Clipjoint' and 'Murder On B Deck', the intriguingly titled puzzle novel 'Cain's Jawbone' and fresh releases like 'Murder at Gulls Nest', the first Nora Breen investigation. It's a shelf for series devotees and one-off whodunit readers alike.
What sets The Clocks Bookshop apart is its commitment to readers who find ordinary books hard going. A whole section — 'For the Dyslexic & Reluctant Reader', mirrored by a Dyslexia Friendly category on the website — gathers titles designed to be easier on the eye, so dyslexic readers and anyone who has fallen out of the reading habit can find books that actually work for them. Alongside a solid children's range and a Design a Bookmark Competition, it's a shop that takes young and struggling readers seriously rather than treating them as an afterthought.
If you'd rather shop from the couch, the website carries the same categories with Click & Collect for picking orders up in store, plus delivery across New Zealand: postage is free on orders over $30 in Christchurch and Canterbury and free over $75 for the rest of the country, with $7.50 otherwise. Shipping is domestic only.
Around the shop, there's a newsletter — 'Minutes' — for those who like hearing about arrivals, gift vouchers for the perennial challenge of buying books for someone whose taste you can't quite pin down, and an active Facebook page for updates.
Big-city bookshops have their place, but Normans Road is lucky to have a shop like this one: small enough to feel personal, broad enough that most readers leave with something, and thoughtful enough — from the dyslexia-friendly shelves to the bookmark competition — to make room for every kind of reader.