LOST IN BOOKS

LOST IN BOOKS is a multilingual bookstore for children, young people and adults from all backgrounds.

Staffed by bilingual workers, LOST IN BOOKS promotes multilingual literacy, community safety, connectedness and cultural exchange. 

This is a social enterprise, which means that any profits will be reinvested back into the project.

Previously a physical storefront, we now sell our books online, dispatching your orders straight to your door. We have high quality titles in over 75 languages, check out our store for more!

“We called it LOST IN BOOKS to capture the joy of being immersed in a great story and for the freedom that reading gives us.”

Jane Stratton (Founder & CEO)

Our Journey

With the help of a community crowdfunding campaign underwritten by the English Family Foundation, LOST IN BOOKS opened its doors in Fairfield – one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse place in Australia, to help newcomers grasp English and adjust to their new life whilst keeping their mother tongues alive.

We raised almost $40K via crowdfunding and found a young architect, Dominique Hage, who was excited to take on a project. With funding, community support and many long hard hours, we built Lost In Books and launched the shopfront in July 2017.

From our first day, we delivered a responsive creative program of storytelling, textiles, music, creative writing and dance. We launched a creative outreach program, Wandering Books, in partnership with Western Sydney Migrant Resource Centre supported by SSI Innovation Fund.

We went on to develop:

  • The Forked Tongues Storytelling Collective

  • IN OTHER WORDS literary residencies;

  • IN OTHER WORDS Multilingual Arts Festival;

  • Sound System Music Residency; and

  • Arrival, an anthology of local artists to celebrate our arrival.