Friday, September 11, 2009

Bye Bye Pages

I'm sad to see the closing of Pages Books here in Toronto. Pages was an excellent independent bookstore that could always be counted on to feature alternatives to big box books fare. It was a place where you could find loads of books published by small presses, plenty of poetry, literary and art criticism, periodicals and more. Almost anytime I found myself in that stretch of Queen West, I liked to pop in and look over the featured books tables. I often found a surprise, a chuckle or a book I just had to read.

It must be tremendously challenging to run an independent bookstore in the face of online competition. It's a hard reality because we're losing places with character, places that have made our city richer. I read the other day that some possibility exists that Pages may re-emerge elsewhere at some point in the future, and I really hope it happens.

2 comments:

tshsmom said...

That's so sad!
We don't have a bookstore in town so I really appreciate places like Amazon. When we travel we always make sure we stop at every bookstore we see. You can't beat the smell and feel of browsing through the stacks!

Barbara Bruederlin said...

That is such a shame. We have a Page Books here, you should come visit. But we did lose our great McNally Robinson bookstore last year.