A recent article in New York Times magazine highlights the Monkey Paw's unique affinity for oddball books, claiming the small Toronto shop might be "publishing's great new hope."
Stephen Fowler opened the shop in 2006 along Dundas West near Ossington. Described as "antiquarian," the used bookshop "is an idea masquerading as a bookshop. It’s a cross between a retail establishment and a conceptual art installation," the article says.
But it's not just the shop's seemingly eclectic repertoire that led to the profile, a randomness Fowler likens to the Web. It's the store's latest innovation, one that turns the old new again.
"Recently, Fowler unveiled his splashiest experiment in randomization. In the rear of the Monkey's Paw, you’ll find the Biblio-Mat, a vending machine the size of an industrial refrigerator, created for Fowler by the designer
Craig Small. A customer drops a Canadian $2 coin into a slot; the Biblio-Mat makes a buzzing noise, a bell rings, and out pops a book. Fowler calls it the 'the iPod shuffle of books.' But behind the stunt, there is a theory: the idea that the most marginal books can offer the pleasure, the value, we associate with canonical literature."
Read the full story
here.
Source: NYT Magazine