Books, books books and more books...
By Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb | Posted: Tuesday Jul 14, 2026
The Book Collector: Reading and Living with Literature by Tony Eyre (Mary Egan Publishing, 2023)
This is a charming and fascinating tale of one man’s love of books – a proper bibliomemoir. North Island born, Dunedin-based septuagenarian Tony Eyre has loved books and reading from childhood and as soon as he was able began to build his own library of his favourite writers and especially New Zealand novelists. Much of his library has been hunted and gathered from second-hand shops the long length and short breadth of Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as school galas, op shops and community fairs. He’s visited storied book emporiums in the UK, the US, Ireland, Australia and China, and taken into his care books from others’ libraries that are being broken up. The book is full of entertaining and pleasing anecdotes about books, people and bookshops and a few fond eulogies for those of each of these that have now gone.
Tony is no bibliomane, obsessively collecting piles of unread books, but a true bibliophile. He writes honestly and sincerely (but never mawkishly) about the writers he loves and the joy he’s had from reading. He collects what he enjoys reading and he is also interested in what might be termed the ‘objectness’ of physical books, the way they feel in your hands, look on your shelves, hold memories and associations of every time you’ve read them, the people with whom you’ve talked about them and the places the books were found.
In his library there are various books which he has several copies of (including the one for actual reading), each designed slightly differently, the cover art speaking to the tastes of the times each book was re-published. This book is itself beautifully designed, its a pleasing size and shape, the dust jacket bright and interesting, its design repeated on the hardboards underneath. Tony also collects first editions, conveying the excitement of either the considered chase or the serendipity occasioned by looking through every dusty box of books he comes across. He conveys how his connections, friendships and conversations with other simpatico ‘book people’ (writers, readers, booksellers, publishers, designers...) have enriched his life, and how pleased he is that the grandchildren are all book readers. Tony is good-humoured and droll about his pursuits, aware that not everything translates and that many might be baffled by his choices: on finding a 1948 edition of The New Zealand Turf Register, a record of every horse racing result in the country that year (racing being another of his enthusiasms) he comments dryly “Every home should have one.”
Tony’s own awareness that his library, his specially chosen books, companions of many long hours, a collection that in some way shows who he is, will themselves severally or in small groups, probably become part of others’ libraries and lives is both moving and generous. Tony wants other people to enjoy and love these books, his own book is a rather wonderful encouragement to consider your own library, whether a room or two or a shelf or two, and the place books have in your life.
The Book Collector by Tony Eyre was published in late 2023 by Mary Egan Publishing. It is still (mid-2026) available for purchase in the usual places.
Find this book and over 3000 others in the Dunedin City of Literature Collection at Dunedin Public Libraries.
Bronwyn Wylie-Gibb worked in independent bookshops in Aotearoa and the UK for over 34 years, as a bookseller and book buyer. She lives and reads in Dunedin.
