[URBAN NOTE] "Flying Books, Toronto’s smallest and most portable bookseller, nesting soon near you"
I will have to keep out an eye for Flying Books. The National Post's Michael Melgaard writes about this project.
“We’re not actually in Flying Books,” Martha Sharpe explains from behind the counter of the Weekend Variety, a general store/gift shop/artsy curiosity emporium on Toronto’s Queen West. “We’re not there until we’re standing in front of the shelf.”
The shelf that constitutes Sharpe’s Flying Books is topped with the company logo (Amelia Earhart, as drawn by author and illustrator Leanne Shapton), below which are a half-dozen titles, all face out, with small, handwritten notes detailing their merits. The one accompanying Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers lets curious shoppers know that the book won the 2016 Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers, briefly outlines what readers can expect from it, and closes with, “Sad, but very worth it.”
[. . .]
The challenge facing any bookseller is that books are sold on tight margins, and while the cost of books has stayed relatively level over the past decade, the cost of renting retail space has gone up significantly. Staying open has proven too costly for many, and likewise, starting fresh with a large outlay of money was off the table for Sharpe. “I didn’t have a huge wad of cash to throw down for a commercial lease,” she explains.
So Sharpe decided that a small, “choosily chosen” selection of a half-dozen or so books tucked inside another retail space was a safer - and inventive - way to start. She pitched the idea to Queen West gallerist Katharine Mulherin, who gave Sharpe some space inside her Weekend Variety store.
Inspired by Amelia Earhart (who fell in love with aviation in Toronto while working as a nurse’s aid), the venture was named Flying Books, which coincidently fit into calling her selections “flights” - a term for a sampling of wines. On August 22, 2015, Sharpe “threw on her flying goggles and flew in,” uncertain if the project would work. “But the books sold quickly and people keep coming back,” she says, enough so that by February 2016, she had snuck shelves into three more locations: Northwood General Store on Bloor, The Gladstone Hotel, and Ezra’s Pound, a coffee shop on Dupont.
“We’re not actually in Flying Books,” Martha Sharpe explains from behind the counter of the Weekend Variety, a general store/gift shop/artsy curiosity emporium on Toronto’s Queen West. “We’re not there until we’re standing in front of the shelf.”
The shelf that constitutes Sharpe’s Flying Books is topped with the company logo (Amelia Earhart, as drawn by author and illustrator Leanne Shapton), below which are a half-dozen titles, all face out, with small, handwritten notes detailing their merits. The one accompanying Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing with Feathers lets curious shoppers know that the book won the 2016 Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers, briefly outlines what readers can expect from it, and closes with, “Sad, but very worth it.”
[. . .]
The challenge facing any bookseller is that books are sold on tight margins, and while the cost of books has stayed relatively level over the past decade, the cost of renting retail space has gone up significantly. Staying open has proven too costly for many, and likewise, starting fresh with a large outlay of money was off the table for Sharpe. “I didn’t have a huge wad of cash to throw down for a commercial lease,” she explains.
So Sharpe decided that a small, “choosily chosen” selection of a half-dozen or so books tucked inside another retail space was a safer - and inventive - way to start. She pitched the idea to Queen West gallerist Katharine Mulherin, who gave Sharpe some space inside her Weekend Variety store.
Inspired by Amelia Earhart (who fell in love with aviation in Toronto while working as a nurse’s aid), the venture was named Flying Books, which coincidently fit into calling her selections “flights” - a term for a sampling of wines. On August 22, 2015, Sharpe “threw on her flying goggles and flew in,” uncertain if the project would work. “But the books sold quickly and people keep coming back,” she says, enough so that by February 2016, she had snuck shelves into three more locations: Northwood General Store on Bloor, The Gladstone Hotel, and Ezra’s Pound, a coffee shop on Dupont.