34 I wanted to dedicate an entry to talking about a great bookstore I discovered one sunny afternoon while walking in the heart of downtown Toronto and went as far as Parkdale. It's called The River Trading company. It's a bookstore run by a guy named David McGowan who, according to my recent reading on that particular bookstore used to work in I.T but recently started up The River Trading Company as a retirement project. A fun fact about The River Trading company: McGowan built all the shelves himself. The River Trading Company has got everything that all the best independent bookstores have: that homely feeling, a great selection, a wonderful atmosphere, and a great set up. The selection is incredible. Under the store name are the words "mostly books" and there is a combination of plays from every single point in time, a reference books, books on pop culture, a vast fiction section, some used cds, and some magazines and zines. Each book comes from Mcgowen's own personal collection and the books are sold at bargain prices due to the fact that everything in there is second hand in fact, the first time I went there I managed to find a mini-anthology of some of Beckett's short plays for only a dollar. The owner is a friendly man that seems to have a lot of interesting things to say about each item in his vast collection who always greets each and every customer that comes in and is always either stacking books or hanging out at the counter.
The most appealing things about this bookstore in comparison to most other bookstores is that it has very flexible hours and has this comforting sense of simplicity. It is set up as a quiet, mini library in which is also inhabited by two pets: a cat that I only saw once when it was fast asleep on a cat bed in a corner of the store, a stray that the owner adopted that sleeps in the store and a dog that loves people and always approaches but seems to be scared of quick, sudden movements. It only lets you pet it if your willing to approach at its preferred slow pace. The River Trading company is a great quality used bookstore, one of the best ones I've seen in a long time and I highly recommend checking it out, or at least going in to say hi to David McGowan's friendly pets. I'm hoping that it encounters success and goes for a good little while. There's this great blog call blogto.com that writes about various things in the Toronto area and during the time that The River Trading Company opened they wrote about they wrote about the store. I included a link to that post but, honestly most of it is a slightly different perspective on what I just said but it expands on it a little bit more. I included a link to the blogto post about the river trading company: http://www.blogto.com/bookstores/river-trading-company-toronto
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