Luna Lee, owner of Parallel

4:28 PM, 24 October 2023

Parallel is Aotearoa's bookstore for everything alternate, imagined, and in-between. Located on the iconic Karangahape Road in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland we’re a community connected by books, beverages, belonging, and big ideas.

At Parallel we serve up delicious soft brew kawhe (coffee) and refreshing Italian sodas alongside our curated selection of exploratory, transformational, and speculative literature.

We know that speculative fiction (SF/F and beyond) has a reputation for being dark, moody, and dystopian. But at Parallel we like to imagine alternate worlds that are full of colour, joy, and optimism. We believe that what we can imagine - a hopeful future, a better world, and connected community - we can create.

Parallel is one of NZ's newest bookshops! We opened our online store in April and have been in our shop on Karangahape since mid-June.

My favourite recent read has been Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. I put off reading it because so many BookTok recommendations aren't really my taste. But oh wow I wish I'd read it sooner! And that I'd not read it at all so I could have the experience of reading it for the first time again! It reads like a one-shot D&D campaign following a retired adventurer as she builds a new life beyond swords and bloodshed. The perfect cosy fantasy to escape into.

Right now Parallel is run solely by myself (Luna) and my wife, Jess. We are, so far as we know, the only trans-owned bookshop in all of Aotearoa.

—Luna Lee, owner of Parallel