Books and coffee, author readings and art. When they come together, it's a beautiful thing. And they all come together in The Next Page in Calgary.
Photo by Stephanie Paull.
The Next Page is a bookstore and coffee shop in Inglewood neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta. According to Google, The Next Page is in good company: "Inglewood is home to shops selling vintage furniture, indie fashion and rare vinyl, and offers an eclectic dining scene." The Next Page sells new, remaindered, and used books — so they've most likely got something right up your alley, whatever your alley is. You can attend readings and book launches in their space, and coming soon are a series of creative writing workshops.
Sabrina and Jeremy from The Next Page agreed to answer our bookseller questionnaire in this instalment of our series, 5 questions with:
1. Which author would you most like to have for an event in your store (living or dead)?
Sabrina: Rebecca Solnit.
Jeremy: Mikhail Bulgakov.
2. What attracted you to bookselling?
S: A passion for reading and highlighting underrepresented voices in society through books.
J: A love for literature and meeting like-minded people.
3. What's your favourite bookselling war story?
S: This isn't a war story so much as a charming one. Two friends came in to the store and each bought the first three books of a series they loved. Upon purchasing the books, they exchanged them. They were long distance friends and were planning on having a long distance book club.
J: A repeat customer who orders one calendar a year and insists that it has come too late and asks us to ship it to her for free. I always wave the white flag.
4. What is the most pressing issue facing bookselling today?
S: Being everything to everyone — we specialize in independent presses as well as bestsellers, but we don't carry authors like Nora Roberts or Clive Cussler, which can turn people off.
J: Ordering online from "big box" stores that offer one-day shipping.
5. What forthcoming book are you most excited about?
S: Rebecca Solnit's Whose Story Is This?: Old Conflicts, New Chapters. Solnit is an insightful writer who ties the threads of history and the present to show how we came to today and how we can change the future.
J: László Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (which just came out). I am always drawn to his works because of the irrepressible bleakness that lasts from beginning to end.
BONUS: An aunt comes in looking for a gift for her niece, who likes embroidery and Proust, just got a new job on a cruise line, and whose beloved schnauzer just passed away. What do you recommend?
S: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty — Doughty writes with humour about becoming a mortician and what the job is like, while also talking about how to change the way we look at death. (Her other two books are also great reads.) Or The Golden Thread by Kassia St Clair, a book about the history of the world through textiles.
J: The My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgaard based solely on its length.
Great recommendations!
Find all of our bookseller responses to this questionnaire here.
Highlights from The State of Publishing in Canada 2023.