It's a Springwood institution, and unless its owners can find a buyer, Brown Books will close next year.
The second-hand bookshop, tucked away in Macquarie Centre Arcade, has been part of the arcade (in two different locations) for 25 years.
Kristine Brown and husband John McLean took over the business from Dorothy Payne eight years ago and have loved every minute of it.
Feeling it's time to move on, they are hoping someone will be interested in keeping the bookstore open.
"We're hoping someone will keep up the tradition and enjoy something we have enjoyed so much," Ms Brown said.
The couple plan to visit their two children who live overseas and are looking forward to having time to relax and not have to think about the shop.
"We'd like to branch out and do things we haven't had time to do for a while.
"Get in the garden, relaxation pursuits and have more time for us.
"But we have very mixed feelings, when we leave we will miss it," Ms Brown said.
The bookstore is home to more than 25,000 books; stacks of replacements that they can't fit in the shop are stored at the couple's home.
"The home has been colonised," Ms Brown said with a laugh.
Among the genres the bookstore stocks are fiction, classics, history, art, literary biographies, a children's section and an expanding collectables section.
Ms Brown said while all bookshops have competition from online and eBooks these days, there was still a good market for paper books.
"With any bookshop that's the competition now, so you have to work to be there within that landscape of eBooks and the internet, but sales have been strong still despite that.
"Customers will mix it up, buying eBooks and buying books.
"People are enjoying buying books and enjoying the look and feel of them."
And some classics never die out - To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, The Catcher in the Rye and Pride and Prejudice - Ms Brown could sell a copy of these every week they're that well read.
