Bookstore Watch | Balfour Books Takes it (half) Off

Got a note from Liz Walker, a staffer at Balfour Books (601 College at Clinton), suggesting it would be a terrible pity to miss the store's annual half-price sale:

Balfour Books Annual Half-Price Sale March 10. Toronto's best used bookstore is holding its annual sale and this year. It will last a whole week. It's a great opportunity to stock up on fiction, photography, theory, design, art, architecture, film, culture studies, cooking, religion and more. All books in the store are on

sale for one week. Open daily at Noon. Open to 11pm.

Mark it on your calendar. Don't come in the shop on March 24 asking for the sale. It will be over and won't happen again until next year.

Sounds good enough for me! In case you're not familiar with Balfour, Toronto Life writes of the store, "[w]ith its whirring ceiling fans and wooden shelves, this shop boasts an appealing old-world atmosphere. One of the last general-interest used bookstores, it stocks almost 20,000 titles; specialties include opera, cooking, art, photography and children’s literature. Balfour carries fiction ranging from contemporary to classic mysteries."

[Old books image by me.]

Bookstore Watch | Coming Soon: McNally books on Bay

I see in the Saturday Globe & Mail ("Bookseller sets up shop on Bay Street") that Ben McNally, the former longtime manager at Nicholas Hoare Books on Front Street, will in June open an eponymous bookstore of his own -- called Ben McNally Books -- at 366 Bay Street (between Richmond and Adelaide). Reportedly the independent bookstore will sell new titles and will focus on quality fiction and non-fiction.

For many years Ben McNally has been an energetic presence in the book trade, writing the "Notes from a Book Addict" column for Booklounge.ca (a trade website), contributing to the Harbourfront Centre's literary programs, and interviewing authors and speaking about bookselling and publishing at large. McNally's departure last fall from Nicholas Hoare Books aroused considerable public curiosity, and so the news that he will be opening his own store does not come as much of a surprise.

I don't follow local literary politics, am always happy to see a new bookstore open, and will look forward to visiting Ben McNally books during my regular Toronto bookstore visits.

[Ben McNally Books image from BenMcNally.com]