Bibliophile list: libraries and bookshops
Nice list for bibliophiles takes in many of the city’s libraries and bookshops, although she leaves out S.W. Welch, The Word and Librairie Henri-Julien. But she never promised it was to be exhaustive.
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Ian 11:43 on 2012/07/21 Permalink
It’s hard to imagine even the most perfunctory list of used bookstores leaving out the Word and S.W. Welch – but then again this is in a French paper. She also left out Odyssey & Cheap Thrills…
walkerp 19:00 on 2012/07/21 Permalink
Wait, I need more info! The Word? Cheap Thrills? Do I know these bookstores? Are they used bookstores?
walkerp 19:03 on 2012/07/21 Permalink
Okay, Google reminds me that I do know The Word. Meh. Cheap Thrills, I really have not heard of. How are their paperback mystery and sci-fi sections?
Kate 19:24 on 2012/07/21 Permalink
The Word tends to have soberer offerings with an academic tone, being close to McGill. I haven’t been in Cheap Thrills for a very long time so I’m not sure what it’s like now.
There are used bookshops in NDG and in the West Island, I think. I know someone who works in one in Lasalle. You might find more English genre books out in that direction, but I’m pretty vague on their locations, especially since I’m trying to reduce the number of books I own, rather than the opposite.
some listed here for example.
Ian 20:58 on 2012/07/21 Permalink
It kind of depends on your tastes. I find mystery in Montreal pretty weak in most used stores. SF is a bit better but it depends on the place. Cheap Thrills is an excellent bookstore of 30-ish years that has mostly Concordia and McGill students as its clientele, so the book quality is high. They are also very, very good for music – as long as you like current non-top-40 stuff. Think hipster music. The SF is better than the mystery, though they are better at “literature”. Encore in NDG (Sherbrooke near Oxford) has a much better selection for both. It was also not on the list. Truth be told if you’re hunting for anything even remotely obscure in used SF & mystery your best bet is to buy used through Amazon. You may need to find a US friend as many of the Amazon used stores won’t ship to Canada.
Charles 09:46 on 2012/07/22 Permalink
Port de tête on Mont-Royal is also great. They have a lot of comic books too (looks like they took over for Fichtre).
david m 20:48 on 2012/07/22 Permalink
obviously different shops have different specialties and foci, but man, for the english, the word is hard to beat. a carefully curated collection the only fault of which lies in the orientation toward mcgill students’ tastes. so you’ll get your monographs on the films of satyajit ray or your norbert elias opus or whatever, but also your noam chomsky and road to serfdom and that. still, a tradeoff well made. when that guy dies and that shop closes, it’ll hit really hard, like tears-worthy.
Ian 08:04 on 2012/07/23 Permalink
I was under the impression that his kids work there, I would be surprised if mere death ends such a fabled bookstore. The Word not only has an excellent albeit academically inclined selection, but also VERY reasonable prices. It’s also the best poetry selection of any used bookstore in Montreal. Except the Beats. Encore has a better selection in that area.
walkerp 11:12 on 2012/07/23 Permalink
Last I checked, The Word did not have a science fiction section, so it is basically dead to me.
Ian, I’ll check out Encore
Kate 11:20 on 2012/07/23 Permalink
walkerp, a couple years ago I was in Middlebury, VT – of all places – little road trip – and there was a used bookstore there, somewhere below street level in their tiny downtown, that had a science fiction section way better than anything I’ve seen here.