Bridge Books in inner city Johannesburg is more than a book store but, a community resource

Bridge Books, 89 Helen Joseph Street, Johannesburg CBD, is the launch venue for Andile Xaba’s new book titled Soweto’s Theatre of Resistance, on Saturday, May 9, 2026. Being released at a time when the country will next month mark 50 years of the Soweto Uprisings, Xaba unpacks the works of icons, the late Gibson Kente, the late Matsemela Manaka and the late Maishe Maponya. Xaba will be in conversation with Yours Truly. All are welcome to attend.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

Second hand books have been a feature of the Johannesburg CBD, for the longest of time. From top notch fiction, romance to the latest political biography book, these books are found at major access points of taxi ranks and Park Station in Johannesburg, as well as busy streets. Often with one person manning the stand, negotiating discounts with book lovers, generally doing what appears to be a roaring business.

However, it took an American expatriate working for a major American news organisation to see the potential of the second hand book market in inner city Johannesburg 10 years ago.

After researching the street book sellers in the inner city, Griffin Shea, the founder of Bridge Books, now a leading mainly second hand book shop in Johannesburg CBD, saw the viability of selling second hand books in Johannesburg CBD. The book shop however alongside second hand books, also stalks new titles on its shelves. The bookshop is also host regular book reading sessions as well as playing as the launch pad for newly released books.

“It was in 2016, when I opened Bridge Books in a tiny shop (on Albertina Sisulu Street). In November we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary. It has been quite a journey from then till now,” he said in an interview with CITYLIFDE/ARTS this week.

The book store, which had a few locations around the city in the past 10 years, with its latest spacious shop, situated at historical Barbican Building, just a stone’s throw from the Gauteng Legislature, has grown from its humble beginnings into a giant of the book trade in inner city Johannesburg. Bridge book’s current home, 89 Helen Joseph Street, is quite spacious, complete with a coffee shop manned by a trained barista for the convenience of customers as they browse through the fully packed bookshelves.

When I went there to interview Shea Wednesday, May, 2026, I found an exuberant team manning the shop and its other community linked activities. There was also a reading session going on, involving young leaners from nearby inner city schools. I even enjoyed a cup of coffee made by a resident barista. If there is one good thing about coffee drinkers in the inner city, it is this coffee shop, as it is hard to find a place where one can enjoy coffee in the inner city. I mean real coffee made by a barista and not from a machine.

The atmosphere in the bookstore is exuberant, yet relaxed and quite welcoming to customers. No wonder at the beginning, when the bookshop was established, some members of the public mistook it for a public library, which according to Shea, was Okay. This is because being close to the City Library, a stone’s throw away, it made sense. In any case, as a stakeholder in the inner city and its literary life, Shea was involved in campaigning for the public library to be reopened after it was closed during Covid-19, after which there were renovations that appeared to take forever to e completed.

Therefore, Griffin and other civil rights organisations took action and put pressure on the City Fathers to expedite the renovations that had kept the library that houses 1.5 million publications, mainly books, closed for five years. That closure denied the public access to this important public resource. However last year, the City reopened a number of the library’s sections, while the rest of the renovation is ongoing, to the relief of Joburgers.

From its humble beginning to what the bookstore has become today, it is in fact, an oddity in the second hand book market, as most of the second hand book stores are scattered around affluent suburbs in the north of Johannesburg. Such as Melville, Milpark, Parkhurst, Brixton, Parkview and Linden among others, alone boasting a dozen bookshops specialising in selling either wholly second hand or a hybrid model of selling second hand books alongside new titles.

However, Bridge Books in the CBD, has found itself trading in books alongside the more than 1000 second hand book traders found on the streets of Johannesburg.

Griffin however does not see the street book traders as a competition, but allies in getting more South Africans to read.

“Ï did research and discovered that these streets have around 1000 street traders, and a number of them are making a decent living out of selling books. For example, I know a few of them whose children attend private schools.

“However, the challenge is that a lot of these second hand book entrepreneurs struggle to get books. To assist them, Bridge Books is currently compiling a data base of all the books that have ever been published in South Africa, and will contain information such as who has these books and which ones are out of print,” he told CITYLIFE/ARTS.

However, Bridge Books has since its inception, grown to become more than a bookstore, but a community resource that connects its activities to the neighbourhood, such as inner city schools through reading sessions it hosts at these schools.

It is also running three community libraries where people, especially young people at primary and secondary school level, can access quality books to read for free.

“We have a library in Victoria Yards, East of Johannesburg, which benefits school children from the surrounding community. Our Non-Profit initiative. Johannesburg Literary District, has partnered with the Non-Profit Organisation active in the inner city, Johannesburg Inner City Partnership. We also have established two other community libraries in Alexandra and Soweto. They are running smoothly, reaching hundreds of young people from these townships, who otherwise would not have access to quality books. We reach about 500 school children in both primary and secondary school monthly through this community outreach programme,” he said.

Shea has a strong background in journalism, creative writing and publishing, holding a Master of Arts Degree in Creative Writing from Wits, and a PHD in Publishing, also from Wits, cementing the author of The Golden Rhino’s position in the country’s publishing, writing and the book trade’s ecosystem.

Griffin had a strong parting shot, demystifying the idea of people said generally not to be fond of reading for especially pleasure

He said that the idea that people generally do not read for pleasure, based on the fact that a book in South Africa is said to be a Best Seller, when it sells 3000 for fiction and R5000 plus for Non Fiction, is in fact not correct.

For one, this data is not correct in that it only records the sales record of new titles, excluding the books that continue to sell on the second hand book market, goes his argument.

“People actually want to read, but from my experience with people who pop into the bookshop, is that they want books written in their languages. It is through Bridge Books’ publishing arm that we are trying to plug that gap.

“For example, last year, we sought the rights to republish the seminal book on Shaka Zulu, titled Chaka by Thomas Mofolo. It is in Sesotho, the language in which it was originally written. It is unacceptable that such a historically important book should exist in other languages, such as French and Germany, but not in Sesotho, the language in which it was originally written.

.Bridge Bookshop, is on 89 Helen Joseph Street, Johannesburg CBD. On Saturday, 9 May, 2026, the bookshop, will host the launch of Andile Xaba’s new book titled Soweto’s Theatre of Resistance. The launch is at 12noon. Xaba will be in conversation with CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor, Edward Tsumele.