ABOUT US
Alexander Fax Booksellers
Kristen Alexander and David Fax first met at a public service personnel management meeting too long ago now to remember exactly when. We fetched up in the same department in 1991, found we got on well (starry-eyed etc), and married in April 1994. In 1997, we purchased a small suburban post office in Canberra which soon became Hughes Post Office and Secondhand Books. We began selling books online in December 1998. We opened Alexander Fax Booksellers, a dedicated bookshop, in 2004, specialising in quality secondhand and selected new military books, while also maintaining an interesting and diverse range of additional subjects. As well as the shop in Mawson, we continue to sell online and through our fortnightly emailed military e-catalogues.
If you visit the shop or email, you will most likely be chatting with David.
Kristen works behind the scenes and dabbles in writing. You can check out what she is up to via her website http://www.kristenalexander.com.au
Kristen Alexander
Kristen is a former public servant (but we won’t go into that). She left the service in 1996. She is Alexander Fax Bookseller’s behind the scenes person—she rarely sets foot in the shop, leaving that to David. She is responsible for managing our inventory and our fortnightly military book lists (fondly known as the RALs, as in Recent Acquisitions Lists). Kristen likes to think she is an author, and currently has five books to her credit. You can read all about them on Kristen’s website http://www.kristenalexander.com.au/
David Fax
David is also a former public servant and specialised in resource management through most of his employment with the Commonwealth (no wonder we got together!). He is the face of the shop, much to Kristen’s chagrin at times, as his bookselling idol and character upon which he claims to model his own style is Bernard Black (but with a little bit of Manny thrown in). With Kristen running the inventory, David acknowledges his major role in the business is that of lifting, carrying, and moving stock around between shop, home and lockups—a never ending, circuitous route, which involves the continual quest for more shelf/floor/stacking space. (He does tend to undersell himself; he enjoys chatting with customers and loves the opportunity to talk about good books.)
Our collection
We specialise in Australian military history.
Our collection includes a broad selection of conflicts from ancient to modern times, and covers areas such as military aviation, naval history, land warfare, military intelligence and espionage, prisoners of war, biographies, unit histories, women in war, and weaponry/technology/transport.
We also stock second hand books across a range of subjects such as civil aviation, Australian history, studies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Australian local histories, fishing, Australian art, and rail/trains.
ORDER
Ordering with confidence
Our stock database is linked to a secure ordering system, via AbeBooks which also hosts our search engine. We request payment; you will be prompted to input credit card details through the ordering system.
Ordering is easy, please refer to our following tips;
- Please click on ‘search’ on the blue navigation/menu bar above. You will be automatically directed to our AbeBooks page. Just fill in the appropriate details in the title, author or subject/keyword fields, and click ‘search’.
- If the contents description is too long, it will be truncated. If you wish to see all of the description, click on ‘More+’.
- Select the book you wish to order by clicking on ‘Add to basket’. The book is now in your shopping trolley. The currency is in US dollars, but you can click to convert. You can either go back to ‘Continue Shopping’ of fill in preferred postage details then ‘Proceed to Checkout’. NOTE: ABEbooks charges set postage costs
- Then follow the prompts to complete the order, providing your address and credit card details where requested. Please note: We do not collect payment. AbeBooks does this on our behalf so the vendor details on your credit card statement will be Abebooks.Co. The amount will be charged in US dollars, but converted to AUS dollars on your statement. You will also be charged a small foreign currency conversion fee.
- You will receive an automatic system confirmation.
- We will also send you a confirming email indicating that we have received the order and will be processing it shortly. We use high quality packaging material to best ensure your book is not damaged in transit.
- We will post out your book/s as soon as possible.
If you require additional information about a book or the order process, or if you have any special requirements, please email us at alexfax@alexanderfaxbooks.com.au.
SUBSCRIBE
Military e-Catalogue
Please email us to receive our fortnightly e-Catalogue of second hand military books. These include books we have recently added to our inventory, repriced blasts from the past, and a small selection of bargain books (which are not listed on our inventory).
Please include your name, contact number, postal address, and your military history interests.
CONTACT US
Visit us or make contact
If you are not in the area, please feel free to email. We try to respond promptly but if you haven’t heard from us within a week of electronic communication, please try again.
Shop Address
Unit 10, Mawson House
Southlands Shopping Centre
Mawson ACT 2607
Postal Address
PO Box 746,
Mawson, ACT, 2607
Australia
Phone
Opening Hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 10am – 3pm
Parking
We are the blue shop near the post office. There is one hour parking next to the 7-Eleven Service Station at 1 Mawson Place. You can also find longer term parking on the Heard Street side of the shopping centre and outside Woolworths Supermarket.
There is also short term drop/off pick up parking outside the Post Office.
Find us on social media
Follow us on X
Follow us on Facebook