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~ About Us - Why We Are Doing What We're Doing

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book&volume is based in picturesque Birregurra, on the banks of the Barwon River in south-west Victoria, Australia. Although book&volume is a 'virtual' bookshop (we don't have a shop front) we do actually stock a goodly number of the books displayed on our website, and stock will become more goodly (goodlier?!) with the passing of time.

book&volume has emerged from lengthy experience in the book-trade. For almost 20 years in another incarnation, we were involved in specialist bookselling in Melbourne but in 2006 thought it time to do something a little different with books in a wholly new environment.

While we are a specialist online bookseller, book&volume also imports and distributes a select range of North American and U.K. published titles. Books from these publishers are mostly humanities and literature focused, and about 10% of these relate directly to our special interest.

If you are a bookseller or a library this website has special pages devoted to these distributed titles. We recommend that you visit the Booksellers and Libraries pages for further information about the publishers we represent, ordering, etc.

Why Are We Doing This Shakespeare Thing of Ours?

book&volume’s inspiration is to offer a comprehensive range of literature about Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We want to present the world in which they lived – from Elizabeth I, the New World, espionage, witches and magic, to literature, theatre, poetry, science and medicine, and religious conflict. We want excite you with debate, criticism, history, biography, politics, educational material, drama, humour and the sheer delight that comes from examining Shakespeare and Co.

Of course Shakespeare is a predominant hook for us. But the endurance of his work and the constant debate over his life and authorship means we cannot - and do not wish to - present him in isolation: he needs to be placed in context, along with his literary contemporaries - Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton, Beaumont, Webster, Bacon, Fletcher, Lyly etc - and the extraordinary new worlds and ideas being discovered and unravelled at the time. Like everyone else, Shakespeare and his contemporaries were products of their time, and they looked to their world and to each other for ideas.

But book&volume is more than about Shakespeare and the literature of a particular era – it is about literature in general and the excitement that comes when a few words, phrases or lines can create ideas, worlds and people out of nothing.

book&volume's complete contact details can be found on the Contact Us page