For an intimate book-buying experience, few things can match the pleasure of an independent owned-and-operated bookstore

In the age of the big box mall, the chain store and the brand name, there are few entrepreneurs more daring and idealistic than those who set out to open an independent bookstore. Since the opening of Chapters and Indigo outlets everywhere, most independent bookstores have gone out of business unable to keep up with the volume discounts the chains can engineer. Yet despite the mega store threat, three independently owned and operated bookstores in the Caledon area continue to provide the kind of personalized service no big box store can match.


The Kleinburg Book Company, Kleinburg

Paul and Zena Reinhardt decided to go to a farm auction where some old barn boards were being auctioned off. When they discovered that the barn boards composed an entire salvageable barn, they bought the whole thing. Thus began their retirement project – The Kleinburg Book Company. Zena is a former librarian with the Vaughan Public Library. Paul is a retired economics professor from York University. For the past ten years their daily routine has begun by waking up to a slow-paced morning and sauntering over, coffee in hand, to the log barn right next door to the house they’ve lived in since 1978.

Things were not that easy in the beginning, of course. It took them four years of wrangling with the town before they were able to get the necessary permits, and Zena admits there have not been many holidays. “You always have to be available. You don’t get away much. Now we have a buzzer in the kitchen so we don’t have to be in the store all the time. When it’s slow we can just walk over when we need to.”

Paul and Zena have created a Kleinburg landmark that many tourists go out of their way to find off the crowded main street. Paul added a huge stone fireplace to the barn that is used every day in the winter. “People comment if it’s not going,” notes Zena.

One of the things that set independent bookstores apart is their involvement in the community. For the past two years, Zena has organized “The Battle of the Books,” with the Federation of University Women, of which she is a member.

A list of 20 books is given to each school in the area. Students volunteer to read the books and a team of six students is chosen from Grades 4, 5 and 6 to compete in a contest of questions about the books they’ve read. Last year, Zena donated 150 books to local schools participating in this event.

Zena has many fond memories of the past 10 years including the support of local resident Pierre Berton. “He would always bring over a box of his latest book a couple of weeks before it was released anywhere else. He did lots of signings for us. We miss him.”

Then there was the busload of librarians who had been travelling for a number of days on the road. “They had read everything they brought with them, and they nearly bought out the whole store!”


Forster’s Book Garden, Bolton

Seven years ago Bolton got its very first bookstore when Donna Kamiel-Forster and Paul Forster were “downsized” from their training jobs in health and safety. They had lived in Bolton since 1989 and were tired of driving to Orangeville or Brampton for books – a passion they both share.

Donna took the booksellers course offered by the Canadian Booksellers Association, and they began work on what is now Forster’s Book Garden on highway 50 in Bolton. “We currently have 35,000 books on the shelves – 15,000 titles,” Paul proudly declares.

Donna and Paul are avid supporters of local writers and anyone interested in books. Their store has become a kind of drop-in centre for readers of all types. As Donna says, “We’re kind of like bartenders. People come in for all kinds of discussions. It’s great. I find myself standing there listening to a 10-year-old go on for 20 minutes about the latest Harry Potter book.” Forster’s has also become a kind of unofficial community centre where all kinds of groups meet during and after business hours – reading clubs, writers groups, Cubs, Beavers, and workshops of all kinds.

For several years they have run a “Reading Incentive Program” where teachers are given coupons on which they can write the number of books a child has read. The kids bring the coupon to the store, and Donna or Paul gives them a key that opens a huge treasure chest from which they can choose a gift.

Paul and Donna also have their interesting stories. The one that still causes them to gnash their teeth was the beginning of the Harry Potter craze. “For the first few months we couldn’t get anyone to buy that book. It just sat there. Then it was talked about on the Rosie O’Donnell show, but in the U.S. it was called “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” In Canada and the U.K. the title was “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. People refused to buy our copies. They were convinced it was a different book. We had kids crying in the store refusing to believe this was the right book!”

The strangest story, however, has to be the one about the gifts left for their dog, a huge Bernese mountain dog. “Every six weeks we find a new gift left for the dog at the front door. We have no idea who leaves them.” Paul showed me the latest gift – a huge stuffed bear. “We would like to say thank you to whoever is leaving those gifts!”

Independently owned - and -operated bookstores offer a kind of personalized service that no chain store can. As Paul and Donna of Forster’s put it, “We know the majority of our customers by name. We know what kinds of books they’re interested in, and we will call them when a book comes in that we think they would like.”

In our globalized branded economy, the independent bookstore remains one of the last bastions of truly personal service.


Timeslips, Palgrave

Tucked away in the tiny hamlet of Palgrave, sits the only used book store in the Caledon area south of Highway 9. While off the beaten track, the store is full on a Sunday afternoon.

Mike Kirkland opened Timeslips two and a half years ago. Arlene Peters, a local potter, helps out when things get busy. “It’s a tight community, and a lot of networking goes on here.” The cozy shop, which includes a coffee bar, has been a gift shop, pizza place, dress shop and, originally, a storage space for the Woodbridge Advertiser newspaper.

Mike’s first love is old books. “I think of myself as an archivist. I like to stock literature and Canadian stuff. Anything rare.”

He gets his stock from anywhere he can – library sales, thrift shops, yard sales and people bringing books in from home. A one-time fan of science fiction, he named the store after the title of a Philip K. Dick novel called Martian Timeslips. “We took off the ‘martian’ because we didn’t want to scare people off,” Mike laughs.

When I ask if they have any local authors who come in, they draw a blank. At the end of the coffee counter, a young boy is filling in a raffle ticket for a pumpkin draw. “Well, that’s Farley Mowat’s grandson, Justin, over there. He lives two doors down from us. Oh, yes, and Johnny Grove who is Hugh Garner’s grandson painted our new sign. So I guess we do have some connections to Canadian literature.” n

Michael Reist is head of the English department at Robert F. Hall Catholic Secondary School in Caledon East.