While in the past two years Toronto has lost some of its most well-loved independent bookstores--notably Ballenford Books, David Mirvish Books, and Pages Bookstore--a feature in the
Toronto Star finds that small-box book shops might be making a comeback. Entrepreneur Jason Rovito, for example, hopes to escape the small bookstore curse by making sure his shop is more than just a store. Instead Rovito has created a bookstore collective, one that "not only sells second-hand books, but houses publishers, reading groups, [and] writing classes". Ravito's College and Spadina storefront "Of Swallows, Their Deeds and The Winter Below" opened to the public on April 22.
An excerpt from Rovito's interview with the Star:
"I think what the electronic bookselling model has revealed," he says, "is that yes, the book can function as almost the ideal commodity." Online, it's an easy sell: there are no sizes or sampling involved, and it's simple to ship. You know exactly what you're getting whether you order it as an e-book or in a physical print edition. The quintessential mass-marketed item."
"But what gets lost in the process, is everything that surrounds the book materially. I think it's an opportunity for us to think of a book as not a thing in and of itself, but as part of a larger process."
"The act of actually browsing in a bookshop is just as valuable, or bumping into somebody and having a conversation about the books, or seeing two books together that you wouldn't necessarily think of, and that creates a different relationship in your mind."
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the Toronto Star