I recently got back from a very cool week in Toronto. The main purpose of the visit was to catch some Rush shows in their hometown. However, when I visit a new/large city, I try and hit up as many bookstores as time allows. Indeed, I’ve already written about my visits to bookstores in Connecticut, New York, and Santa Barbara on this blog.

Well, Toronto’s bookstore scene didn’t disappoint. Of course, I only scratched the surface by visiting 7 different businesses. The first thing I noticed was that there were not a lot of big corporate retail stores, such as the Barnes & Noble stores that are ubiquitous in the U.S.. I visited one such store, Indigo, which is one of the bigger, if not the biggest, book chain in Canada. The store itself was big and I enjoyed a long browse there, but it struck me how small the lines were to buy books, especially since I had recently been to Powell’s in Portland and witnessed lines 15 to 20 people deep there. It is also worth mentioning that the Indigo store was located in a massive mall in downtown Toronto that is apparently one of the busiest malls in North America.

Without big box retailers, that leaves small independent bookshops to fill the void. I visited 5 such places and they were all unique. One was exclusively used books and felt like something Harry Potter might be found shopping in. Another, just down the street, was sleek and modern (but too small with too few books). Small bookstores have to be picky about what they are going to stock so it was interesting to see how each of these small stores stocked their shelves. The best history section was at Type.

My favorite store though was the University of Toronto bookstore. I love checking out college bookstores, especially because I am curious as both an avid reader and a high school educator, what college professors are having their students read. It was summer, so the shelves were not fully stocked but I really enjoyed seeing what was on offer. I discovered a series of IB (International Baccalaureate) textbooks, which was strange since those are meant for high school students. Nevertheless, it was fun to see what the IB curriculum is, as I know a bit about how it differs from the more popular (but less rigorous) AP program that I teach.

One element of IB curriculum that I am interested in is their Theory of Knowledge program. After visiting the UT bookstore, I actually found a free pdf copy of the Theory of Knowledge text that I saw at the bookstore. I started reading it before I left Toronto. At a future date I’ll likely make a post about what I think about that subject.

All in all, I was super happy to check out these bookstores in Toronto. If you are a book lover, there’s a lot to explore in Canada’s biggest city.