On Reading

Last year we began bringing in books for the shop, special ordering books for customers, and having some beautiful calligraphy or art books for browsing in store. Since the quarantine started and library closed, though, I’ve begun scrolling online publishers’ catalogues late into the night, looking for books for Caleb and Naomi, making lists, and in the process discovering some treasures that would be great for the shop.

On a scale of 1 to 10, you could say that I’m handling the Toronto Public Library closing not very well.

Last summer, we took a trip to Japan and then to Hong Kong, and I’m now at last getting to the backlog of blog posts that I had dreamed of writing when I was there. 

We’re barreling along right into our busy season, and we’re taking a deep breath in now as we roll up our sleeves to dig in. It’s a very satisfying feeling to see all of the rows of notebooks stacked neatly on our shelves, packing supplies for online orders ready to go—although the to do lists still seem pretty long some days, and most (/all) days the upstairs apartment is chaotic.

One of the best ways to travel is with a book or two written about or from the country or city you’re visiting. Plane rides, train rides, afternoon coffee breaks, waiting for the museum to open, after bedtime quiet hours—there are pockets of time that aren’t always there in your “real life” that can filled with a good book.

Near Chiyoda-Ku is the Jinbocho Book Town, so called because its streets are a maze of used and new bookstores, mostly in Japanese, but a little smattering of English here and there. They seem to be mostly used bookshops, smaller ones with shelves to the ceilings, but there are a number of larger, multi-floor, new bookstores, some with cafes or selling stationery or gifts. Several of the smaller bookshops, not unlike many (most?) independent specialty shops in Japan, have signs indicating no photos, so these are just a tiny sample of the ones that do allow photos.