I’m spending a little time in Canada, visiting family, and as you do, we got to a point when they said, “What would you like to do?” and obviously, being me, I said, “I’d like to go to a bookshop.” Because that’s what you do, don’t you, when you’re book-obsessed – you look in bookshops wherever you go, even in countries where all the books are in languages you can’t read. (My husband, who is bicycle-obsessed, seeks out bike shops wherever we go.)
So the question is, when you enter a bookshop in another country,
what do you look for? Well, first, you need to browse, just to get the feel of
the place. I thought I might find here, in this English-speaking country with
its historical links to Britain, that the shelves were full of familiar British
authors plus all those ubiquitous American authors. My knowledge of literary
Canadians is limited to Margaret Atwood, L M Montgomery and Carol Shields –
though I’ve just looked up a list of Canadian writers and found that I’ve read
several more but hadn’t realised they were Canadian. I was pleasantly surprised
to find the small independent bookshop we visited full of unfamiliar names and
lovely books from publishers I’d never heard of – though of course Harry Potter and the Cursed Child did
take up a large display table and most of the window, but then, bookshops have
to make their money from what’s going to sell, even lovely little independent
ones.
First stop, something historical and Canadian for the
husband (whose other obsession is history). Slight feeling of not knowing where
to start, but my brother (who lives here) pointed out something perfect. Deep
breath. Now to indulge myself.
Momentarily considered buying books for my daughters, but to
be honest we all read each other’s books all the time, so I might as well just
suit myself (plus I’d already bought chocolate for them). I did head for the young
adult section first though. If I’m not directly buying YA titles to give to the
girls, I can always pretend I’m buying them for research if anyone asks (though
you and I know this isn’t true). I had one rule: Canadian authors only. Which
turned out to be easier than I thought it would be as so many of those on the
shelves were by Canadians. So I got a couple of YA books (one with a title I
recognised from somewhere – who could forget Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend when they had heard it once) and then
moved on to the adult fiction shelves for a couple more.
As souvenirs go, books are definitely top-end in terms of
price, and weighty in your luggage too, but what could be better as far as
taking home a little bit of the culture from your visit? Take home a picture or
a piece crafted by someone native to the country and you can look at it and
remember what it felt like to be a stranger in that country. Take home a book
and you can inhabit the mind and the life of a Canadian for a while. (Plus Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend – once you’ve
seen that on the shelves, don’t you just have
to read it?)
