Bondi beach bookshelves offer sunbathers and surfers the ultimate in holiday reading

A book is an oft-spotted companion to those who worship the sun on Australia's most famous beach but usually it hasn't been plucked from a giant red bookshelf just metres away.

Surfers browse a bookcase on Bondi beach

Surfers take a break from the waves to browse books at one of the 30 red BILLY bookcases that have been placed on Bondi beach to celebrate 30 years of Ikea's famous shelf.

As part of the 30th-birthday celebrations of one of IKEA's most popular bookshelves, the BILLY, the Scandinavian furniture giant placed 30 of the bookcases on the sands of Bondi beach in Sydney.

The shelves, which were in place for just one day, offered bookworms thousands of books to choose from and beachgoers were invited to swap one of their own books or make a gold coin donation, with money raised going to The Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation.

Bookcase on Bondi Beach

Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Katie Price? Visitors to Bondi Beach can rifle through a variety of reading material from the world's largest outdoor bookcase.

IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad in Sweden and outlets of the furniture company can now be found all over the world. Bondi Beach stretches one kilometre in length and was added to the Australian National Heritage List in 2008.