Australian stories ยท Book guide
The Emporium of Imagination by Tabitha Bird: what it is about, and who it is for
A shop that travels the world selling vintage gifts that mend broken dreams, and phones that reach the people you have lost, arrives in a small Queensland town. Its keeper has just realised he is dying.
The Listening ShelfUpdated 3 October 20262 min read
This page once held an earlier review by a different writer. This is a new page: a plain guide to the book, written from the book itself and its publisher's record, not a personal verdict.
The short answer
The Emporium of Imagination (Viking, March 2021) is Tabitha Bird's second novel: magical realism set in Boonah, Queensland. A fantastical travelling shop arrives in town just as its long-time custodian, Earlatidge Hubert Umbray, learns he is dying and must find a replacement. It is a story about grief, regret and hope, for readers who like their realism with a little magic.
What it is about
The Emporium of Imagination is "a most unusual shop that travels the world offering vintage gifts to repair broken dreams and extraordinary phones to contact lost loved ones", in the publisher's words. When it arrives in the small town of Boonah, its custodian, Earlatidge Hubert Umbray, realises he is dying, and the clock starts on finding his successor.
The town needs the shop's kind of magic. Enoch Rayne is ten, mourning his father and carrying a guilty secret. Ann Harlow has come to Boonah to be near her dying grandmother, but it is Enoch's father who fills her thoughts, and her regrets. And Earlatidge himself gets one last chance to face a tragedy of his own.
Who wrote it
Tabitha Bird is a writer, poet and painter who lives in Boonah, the town the novel is set in. Her first novel, A Lifetime of Impossible Days, won the Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award.
Who it is for
- Readers who enjoy magical realism with an Australian country-town setting.
- Anyone drawn to stories about grief and second chances; it sits comfortably beside the novels on our grief shelf.
- Book clubs: the different characters' losses give plenty to talk about.
How to hear or borrow it
The audiobook is read by Gemma Bird Matheson and Henry Nixon and runs about nine and three-quarter hours. Neither of the two Libby catalogues we check held it, so try your own library's BorrowBox or borrow it in print.
Common questions
Where is The Emporium of Imagination set?
In Boonah, a small rural town in south-east Queensland, where the author lives.
What genre is The Emporium of Imagination?
Magical realism: a realistic story of a small town and its grief, with one fantastical element, the travelling shop.
Is there an audiobook of The Emporium of Imagination?
Yes, read by Gemma Bird Matheson and Henry Nixon, about nine and three-quarter hours.