Books! Beautiful books!

It's Independent Bookstore Day, and I feel I ought to spend my day patronizing some. Truth is, there aren't too many in these parts, serving literature in English anyway.

Recently I made a lunch hour trip to one store, not Chapters, that reminded me how intimate and independently curated shops stoke my love for print.

(Frankly, though this store started as an independent — ah, I remember visiting it when... — it was bought out by a local francophone chain and a couple years ago bought again by a still large francophone chain, so while it stands as an English bookstore among a chain of French-language shops, some of which are purportedly but not very practically bilingual, I'm not convinced it qualifies as "independent.")

I fell in love with many books on display. Here's a sample...

Pulp! The Classics: A pulp fiction touch to counter the seriousness of literature.

Picador Modern Classics: Will fit in your pocket. Stylishly.

Alma Classics: Lovely stylized cover art for a retro modern vibe.

Canterbury Classics: Leather-bound with "word cloud" cover graphics for a modern look.

Harper Olive Editions: Bold colours and stripey spines, an eclectic mix of titles that span the past century, many of which I've never heard of.

MacMillan Collector's Library: Compact volumes wrapped in robin's egg blue.

Penguin Essentials: Classics made to look fun and relevant.

Penguin Great Ideas: No longer being produced, but still original and beautiful.

Penguin Pocket Classics: I want them all. I love that the text is made to speak for itself.

Pushkin Press London Library: Small and clever.

Ebooks are fine — I love then, I read them all the time — and online shopping is expedient, but sometimes I still need to go to a bookstore.