The International Bookshop, serving Melbourne’s Left and literary culture, started as a small Communist Party of Australia bookshop in Exhibition Street, Melbourne in 1933. It sold communist papers, books and pamphlets and imported Marxist classics and Soviet literature. After the CPA became defunct the Search Foundation funded the bookshop. The bookshop closed its premises at 17 Elizabeth Street on 31 May 1993.

The Left Book Club Co-operative Ltd was formed on 19 July 1988 in New South Wales. The clubs main object was to challenge the New Right ideas and to promote socialist ideas, principles and values. The first directors of the Club were Jennifer Wilkinson, Ted Wheelwright, David McKnight, Robin Gollan, Vera Deacon, Abe David, Christine Brunt (Secretrary), Allan Ashbolt, and Laurie Aarons (Chairperson).