Fanfare and The Wee Book & Photo Studio

It took me five months but I was finally able to visit two more independent bookstores although it did not happen the way I expected.

Last week we made our yearly trip to Stratford, Ontario in Canada to see theater. It's a four hour trip so the first day we saw Waiting for Godot in the evening. The following morning we headed for Callan's. Every year I would talk to the proprietor and get suggestions for new authors. Mostly Canadian writers, Mr. Callan helped me discover Stuart Pawson, Howard Engel, and Donna Leon among others.

The Wee Book and Photo Shop

Imagine our surprise to find that Mr. Callan had sold his store and retired! Now called The Wee Book and Photo Shop, sisters Maureen and Suzanne share the space. One sells books and the other takes photographs including ones in costumes. Check out their website.

Wandering down Ontario Street you will find several additional bookstores, but the one that caught my fancy was Fanfare Books. It is one of those dangerous places that will quickly part you with your money even when you have pledged, as I recently did, to allow no more books into your life.

Fanfare Books

I must confess that I purchased Stuart Pawson's The Picasso Scam (first of his police procedural series and you can't find his books easily in the US), Alafair Burke's Long Gone (got it from the library but had to return it before I had a chance to read it and besides it was on the tempting outside sale table); The Shakespeare Miscellany (well, I was at a Shakespeare Festival after all), and A Writer's Space by Eric Maisel (an impulse purchase).

Peg browsing the sale books

That makes three independent bookstores visited this year and enough new books added to my collection to keep me busy for a very long time.