Exclusive Books - Cape Town

Exclusive Books has a rich history – a colourful past of peaceful protest, celebrity appearances, fascinating stories and a family of staff, all boasting eclectic and wide-ranging knowledge. We are more than a store: Exclusive Books is a shared cultural touchpoint with personality and authority made possible through passion and an undying love of literature.

Back in the Cold War, long before the Internet, a small, unassuming bookstore opened on King George street in Johannesburg in 1951. Word of mouth spread. Then that store, in the beloved care of founders Pamela and Phillip Joseph, moved to Pretoria street in Hillbrow in 1973, its loyal customers following it. It sold its last book in 1993. Happily though, the famous Hyde Park store had been open since 1984. Then one store became  

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five, became ten, became twenty: now we are getting closer to forty stores, including a store that exists only in the sky – www.exclusivebooks.co.za.

Books are our lifeblood and drive, and the Reading Trust is our way of sharing that love with South Africa’s future readers. Established in 2002, the Reading Trust has built libraries, donated to schools and worked with other literacy advocacy groups to further the cause of literacy in South Africa. It has been an honour thus far, and it is our hope to keep building libraries, those sacred places that enrich both individuals and communities.

We may be online, and we love the digital age (have you seen us tweet?) but at heart we remain as we started out: we are the quirky local bookstore staffed by the keenest of readers and still crazy about books after all these years.

As we move into a new era, we’ll keep growing and changing, and while our hearts will always be buried somewhere in a thousand great books, it is our hope that we will find new and exciting ways to serve our customers and country.