This is bliss! There’s a library across the courtyard, there are shelves of good books behind me and above … & … & … & … I have a coffee to sip on that’s mellow and smooth.

A quote from Anthony Trollope is painted on the silvery-grey wall of the stairwell. “What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book and a cup of coffee? Was ever anything so civil?”

As bookshops in coffee shops go, Ampersand on Crown Street, Surry Hills, is up there with the best.

Pages from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping act as wallpaper in the downstairs part of the café and upstairs there are darkly dimpled leather chairs you could easily get lost in with a slim volume on a languid afternoon.

I laugh when the waitress says she eats the “adult” version of the boiled egg + soldiers I’ve ordered. I only want one egg. The adult version comes with two!

Nestled behind a water cooler there’s this quote from George Luis Borges: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of Library.”

Browsing this newly-discovered earthly paradise that is Ampersand, my top three finds were:

The Master by Colm Toibin — Adam Mars Jones reviewed The Master when it was released in 2004 and said it was a portrait of Henry James that has the depth and finish of great sculpture.

Terra Amata by J. M. G. Clézio — The French-Mauritian Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is the author of 40 books and no-one does minute, sensual detail that illuminates the human condition quite like him.

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth — Roth has written 31 books and is now settling into retirement. Recently, in The Guardian, he named his favourite novels from his half-century career. Portnoy’s Complaint, released in 1969, was one of them — and I liked the anecdote about him taking his parents out to lunch to warn them about the book’s explicit content.

Ampersand on Crown is at 416 Crown Street Surry Hills.