Every visit rewards as the shop opens itself up.
The stuffed raven you have walked by without noticing time after time suddenly catches your eye, and you’re left wondering how you could possibly have missed it on your first visit.
The Harley Quin mask that hides above the entrance, the classic Jaws poster, and then there’s the framed artwork from UK and US first editions of the Stephen King novel It, the book that really turned Richard on to reading.
“I was 13, maybe 14 at the time and starting to tire of the fantasy writers I was reading, I wanted something that was going to affect me more,” Richard says.
“I was hunting among the book stores at Salamanca Market and I saw this jacket cover peering up at me from one of the tables, and decided to buy it. I didn’t even know who Stephen King was at the time.
“I took it home and started reading immediately. That first chapter really scared me, and I loved it. I loved the fact that all of a sudden I was scared to wander through a dark house to go to the bathroom. It was a new experience for me, a really, really powerful type of reading experience.
“I had read Watership Down, but that book utterly destroyed me, it was just so harrowing. But Stephen King’s It, that book had a different sort of energy behind it, and I wanted more.”
So go on, pay Richard a visit, enter his beloved bookshop Cracked and Spineless. There is always something interesting playing in the background, Sonic Youth, Zappa, the Pixies, curious conversations.
But really, it’s about the books. So many books.
Cracked and Spineless is open Monday to Friday 9 am – 5.30 pm, 9.30 am – 4 pm Saturday.
It’s tucked down a small arcade in Shop 9, 138 Collins Street, Hobart.
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Phone: (03) 6223 1663.