A bookshop not just for a rainy day

Former school librarian Meryll Williams named her bookshop Rainy Day Books after a friend remarked on how much she liked reading on a rainy day.

Well, Rainy Day Books, in The Basin at the foot of Mount Dandenong, is worth a visit whatever the weather.

Meryll's speciality is children's books, particularly 'girlsown' books like the Chalet School, etc. But the bookshop also has a well-stocked crime section, including a bookcase devoted to cosy crime, along with romance, sci fi and general fiction. There's a very good history section too, including books and brochures on local history.

Rainy Day Books has been open since 2006 and is one of only two bookshops (the other one is Kallista Books) that still survive from the old Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley Book Trail that Meryll helped set up in around 2007.

Meryll also helped establish the annual Mountains of Books Book Fair that takes place in Ferny Creek over Melbourne Cup weekend.

There are a couple of local cafes and a playground across the road should you want coffee or lunch or somewhere to let the kids burn off energy. We always have coffee at the Chocolate Dragonfly, but the other local cafe always seems busy so it must be good too.

Books for a rainy day!

Melbourne is having its wettest start to winter in years and years and years ... so, where better to stock up on winter reading than the aptly named Rainy Day Books?

Rainy Day Books is in the Basin, right at the foot of the Mountain Highway leading up to Mount Dandenong. Its owner, Meryll Williams, has had the bookshop for around four and a half years; prior to that, you might remember there was a great little collection of vintage children's books in the antique shop just past the Old Bakery Bookshop in Warrandyte. They were Meryll's stock. I still miss that little room when I go in that antiques shop!

Rainy Day Books is a general bookshop, selling everything from poetry to Mills and Boon, but its crime and children's collections are particularly strong. Meryll's a fan of old girls' books by the likes of Elsie J Oxenham and Mary Grant Bruce and it shows: there are some great vintage titles to be found on the "old and interesting" section as well as in the children's corner.

Meryll named the shop one wet day when her friend picked up a book and said, "This is what I like to do on a rainy day." She's not the only one. I spent most of yesterday absorbed in a crime novel while the rain pattered on the window and the housework remained undone!