Tales of two bookstores
Independent bookstores seem to be getting a lot of lovin’ from the media this week, with two different stores receiving full-on profile treatment.
First up is Halifax’s Frog Hollow Books, profiled in The Globe and Mail. Actually, the piece isn’t so much a profile as a letter of advice. (It appears to be part of a regular series of business advice columns.) The author, Stephen Clare, expresses concern about the recent closure of other Atlantic Canadian shops – like The Book Room (also in Halifax) and Bennington Gate in St. John’s – and proceeds to offer up suggestions to Frog Hollow owner Heidi Hallett about how she can stay competitive. Most of the advice he offers is no-brainer stuff, however, and it kind of comes across as if he thinks he can tell Hallett things she doesn’t already know.
The second profile is of Toronto’s This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, in eye weekly. As Q&Q readers already know, the shop is set to close its Church Street doors at the end of this month, but the new incarnation – in the city’s Kensington Market neighbourhood – is set to open within the next week or so. The piece offers up an interesting timeline of the store’s various incarnations, which go all the way back to 1979.
Does anybody know where on the Danforth the new Type Books will be?