Bakka-Phoenix Science Fiction & Fantasy Bookstore is an independent bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, which specializes in science fiction and fantasy literature.
Bakka-Phoenix Science Fiction & Fantasy Bookstore is an independent bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, which specializes in science fiction and fantasy literature.
Bakka was started on Toronto's Queen Street West in May 1972 as a combined science-fiction and comic book store called Bakka, [1] a name taken by founding owner Charles McKee from a Fremen legend in Frank Herbert's novel Dune . The comic book business split off early on, becoming The Silver Snail, originally located on the opposite side of Queen Street West.
Bakka published Bakka Magazine from 1975-77. [2]
The store moved in March 1998 to 598 Yonge Street in Toronto, the same building as the Glad Day Bookshop, and relocated in March 2005 to 697 Queen Street West in Toronto.
In November 2010, the store moved again, this time to larger quarters at 84 Harbord Street, adjacent to the main campus of the University of Toronto, in the Harbord Village neighbourhood. [1] The new building has a ground floor devoted to new books; a downstairs devoted to media tie-ins, related nonfiction, and used books; and an upstairs function room available for book club meetings and similar events. Although the previous locations were rental sites, the store owns the Harbord Street building. [1]
Bakka originally had a substantial stock of used books, but when the store moved to its 1998 location, the reduced space meant that emphasis shifted almost entirely to new books; with the November 2010 move, it went back to having a significant used-book section. Unlike many other science-fiction specialty stores, Bakka has remained almost exclusively a bookstore; it does not sell toys, games, comics, memorabilia, or collectibles.
At the original location, the store styled its name as "Bakka: A Science Fiction Book Shoppe". The signage out front in later years there was a space mural by Toronto artist Kevin Davies. At the 697 Queen Street location, the store styled itself as "BakkaPhoenix Science Fiction & Fantasy Bookstore", with signage graphics by John Rose, owner of the store at the time. The signage at the 84 Harbord location, also with graphics by Rose, adds a hyphen, styling it as "Bakka-Phoenix Books: Science Fiction & Fantasy Bookstore".
Its third owner, Ben Freiman, bought the store in 2003 from Rose; he appended "Phoenix" to the store's name to mark the new ownership, although the clientele still mostly refer to the store as just "Bakka". Freiman made no changes to the staff; Christine Szego was manager until 2018. [1] After retiring, she was replaced with Scott Dagostino, who left in 2020. The current manager is Becca Lovatt.
Several noted Canadian science fiction and fantasy authors, including Robert J. Sawyer, Tanya Huff, Cory Doctorow, and Nalo Hopkinson, have been employed by the store. In honor of the store's 30th anniversary, The Bakka Anthology, containing new stories by all of these writers with an introduction by Spider Robinson, was published in 2002. The anthology was edited by Kristen Pederson Chew, and was the final volume released under the Bakka Books imprint, established by then-owner John Rose.
Forbidden Planet is the trading name of three separate businesses with online and retail bookstores selling science fiction, fantasy and popular culture products. The original store was opened in London in 1978 named after the 1956 feature film of the same name. Specialising in film and television merchandise, the shops sell comic books, graphic novels, fantasy and horror, manga, DVDs, video games, and a wide variety of co-branded edition/collector's items, promotional apparel and merchandise and collector's items.
Tanya Sue Huff is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.
Michelle Michiko Sagara is a Canadian author of fantasy literature, active since the early 1990s. She has published as Michelle Sagara, as Michelle West and as Michelle Sagara West. Sagara has received two nominations for the John W. Campbell Award.
This Ain't the Rosedale Library was an independent bookstore located in Toronto, Ontario. Located near Bond and Queen, and later in the Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, the store moved to Kensington Market in May 2008, but closed in June 2010. Its name referred to Rosedale, an affluent neighbourhood of the city.
The World's Biggest Bookstore was a bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at 20 Edward St, just north of the Toronto Eaton Centre and the Atrium on Bay. Operating from 1980 until 2014, the three-storey store covered 64,000 square feet and was noted for its bright lights and over 20 kilometres of bookshelves.
Sam the Record Man was a Canadian record store chain that, at one time, was Canada's largest music recording retailer. In 1982, its ads proclaimed that it had "140 locations, coast to coast".
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store. They may be structured as sole proprietorships, closely held corporations or partnerships, cooperatives, or nonprofits. Independent stores can be contrasted with chain bookstores, which have many locations and are owned by corporations which often have divisions in other lines besides bookselling. Specialty stores such as comic book shops tend to be independent.
Glad Day Bookshop is an independent bookstore and restaurant located in Toronto, Ontario, specializing in LGBT literature. Previously located above a storefront at 598A Yonge Street for much of its history, the store moved to its current location at 499 Church Street, in the heart of the city's Church and Wellesley neighbourhood, in 2016. The store's name and logo are based on a painting by William Blake.
The Other Change of Hobbit is a science fiction and fantasy bookstore, formerly located in Berkeley, California and then El Cerrito; it no longer has a physical location. It was founded in 1977, the same weekend that Star Wars opened. It has been the site of numerous author appearances. The founding partners were science fiction fans Dave Nee, Debbie Notkin, and Tom Whitmore. The store is named after the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Maxim Jakubowski is an English writer of crime fiction, erotica, and science fiction, and also a rock music critic.
The Albert and Temmy Latner Jewish Public Library in Toronto, Ontario, Canada was founded in 1941 as the Jewish Public Library by bookseller Ben Zion Hyman. The library began as a small independent collection located at Hyman's storefront on Spadina Avenue in the late 1930s until 1941 when the public library was formally established and moved to a set of rooms in the College Street and Spadina Avenue area. It later moved to the intersection of Markham Street and Harbord Street and then Glen Park and Glenmount Avenues. In 1983, it settled in its final location in the Lipa Green Building at 4600 Bathurst Street.
Mark Askwith is a Canadian producer, writer, interviewer, and a familiar name in the fields of science fiction and comics.
The Toronto Women's Bookstore was the largest nonprofit, feminist bookstore in Canada, before its closure in November 2012. It was run and staffed primarily by women of color, and sold fiction, poetry and non-fiction by women writers to promote feminist and anti-oppression politics.
Borderlands Books is a San Francisco independent bookstore specializing exclusively in science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Eborn Books is a bookstore and book publisher located on the Wasatch Front with its main store in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States.
The Beguiling is a comic shop in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It specializes in underground and alternative comics, classic comic strip reprints, and foreign comics. It has built an international reputation for focusing on and promoting non-superhero comics in the superhero-dominated North American comic book market.
The Monkey's Paw is an independent used bookstore in Toronto, Ontario, Canada known for its eclectic, arcane, and absurd books, and for the Biblio-Mat, a random book vending machine.
A Different Light was a chain of four LGBT bookstores in the United States, active from 1979 to 2011.
A Room of One's Own is an independent bookstore located at 2717 Atwood Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin. The store was founded in 1975 as a feminist bookstore and was named after Virginia Woolf's 1929 essay of the same name. A Room of One's Own carries a broad selection of books, with a focus on works by women and non-binary people and the LGBT community.
DreamHaven Books & Comics, established 1977 by Greg Ketter, is a Minneapolis, Minnesota independent bookstore specializing in science fiction, fantasy and horror.