We’re back with another instalment part of our 5 questions with booksellers series. This time featuring Alberta’s beloved indie bookstore, Glass Bookshop.
Glass Bookshop, founded by Jason Purcell and Matthew Stepanic, is located in Edmonton, Alberta, they focus mainly on offering books by Canadian authors with a special place for LGBTQ2SIA and IBPOC contributors.
Glass Bookshop founders Jason Purcell and Matthew Stepanic. Photo by Zachary Ayotte.
Jason and Matthew answered our bookseller questionnaire in this instalment of 5 questions with:
1. Which author would you most like to have for an event in your store (living or dead)?
Jason: I can’t (and won’t) choose only one. Anne Carson: I know she prefers to do readings of plays and I would happily come out of retirement and show off my high school acting chops for her. Dionne Brand: extraordinary poet, novelist, essayist, and such a sense of humour! Would especially love to have her in conversation with a local writer. Esther Perel: she’s responsible for much of my mental and emotional self-awareness and would absolutely love to hear her speak (and maybe muster the courage to ask a question).
Matthew: I consider myself Andre Alexis’ number-one fan, and with the final novel in his Quincunx Cycle, Ring, coming out in the future, I would love to host him in the shop and hear him discuss his process for the project and his plans to re-work the earlier novels.
2. What attracted you to bookselling?
Jason: I think any book lover dreams of working in a bookstore, and many probably have a romantic view of it. Of course, what’s attractive about bookselling is the gift of spending one’s entire day with books and sharing favourites with other book lovers. I spent around 7 years through high school and university working at a big box book retailer and soon learned that there were different investments and politics and priorities at that corporate level that butted against my more idealistic and romantic hopes about bookselling. What we do at Glass Bookshop is, in a lot of ways, in response to the culture of bookselling that I was brought up in, so to speak.
Matthew: Similar to Jason, I’ve always dreamed of working in a bookstore because I love books. Unlike him though, I’ve never been able to land a job at a bookstore or even a library despite many attempts. I spent my retail career at Blockbuster (RIP), and one of my favourite jobs was recommending movies, particularly independent ones that didn’t get as much space on our shelves. I love talking to customers and leading them to new books and authors that they wouldn’t have found on their own, and hopefully helping them find their new favourite read.
Photo by Zachary Ayotte.
3. What's your favourite bookselling war story?
Matthew: As a still-new bookseller, I don’t feel like I’ve earned any battle scars yet. However, December 2019 was a wild time for us, especially as Jason and I were working shifts alone at that time. On one Sunday, I had at least eight customers in the store at once, and most were looking for gift recommendations or to checkout. Fortunately, they were all patient with me as I jumped from question to question, and it hasn’t yet manifested as a work-related stress dream.
4. What is the most pressing issue facing bookselling today?
Jason: I feel hopeful that dedicated readers and book buyers are remembering the value of independent bookstores. After a stretch of time that saw indies shuttering and more standardized, big box book retailers absorbing a share of the market, I’m seeing a return to local, community-based commerce. Independent bookstores do so much for local communities, and I think the spell of convenience and standardization that chain stores cast might be breaking, especially as we sit alongside COVID-19. Where big box stores see books as commodities to sell—I’m thinking here of one-time Barnes & Noble head Len Riggio’s statement that they strive to sell more books than toothpaste—I find independent bookstores, while certainly still engaging in commerce and invested in selling books, see more than a commodity. I think indies care deeply for the various communities involved in the writing, editing, publishing, reading, study of any book, and return that care to the place (city, neighborhood) they’re located in. I think this is a moment for booksellers and indie bookstores to define themselves by the value they bring to their communities. Anyone can get any book on Amazon, probably faster and almost certainly cheaper, so how do you position the titles you carry as more than objects, as more than commodities? How do these titles resonate with and respond to your community? What value does supporting your bookstore bring to your community?
Matthew: Jason pretty much said it all in his answer, but I will add that, as independent bookstores, it’s important for us to educate our customers and communities about the value of shopping local and boycotting Amazon. We’ve definitely seen that support in Edmonton, especially recently as the pandemic led many people to support local businesses that were struggling, and I hope we can continue to educate them on why those purchasing decisions are so important.
5. What forthcoming book are you most excited about?
Jason: This is on a lot of highly-anticipated lists, but Billy-Ray Belcourt’s A History of My Brief Body is one of the greatest things I’ve read in a long time and I can’t wait for it to be released.
Matthew: I’m looking forward to Kevin Lambert’s You Will Love What You Have Killed from Biblioasis. I’m a huge fan of queer horror, and with its mix of ghosts, tarot, and mysterious murders, I’m certain this one will hit all the right notes for me.
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?
Jason: Anne Carson’s The Albertine Workout. An exquisite extension of Proust from one of the most exciting minds!
Matthew: I grab out a detail or two from a customer’s long description, and try to recommend a title that may fit each. To celebrate that specific new job, I’d recommend Kayla Geitzler’s fun poetry collection, That Light Feeling Under Your Feet, about her experiences working on cruise ships. Or to comfort the niece, I’d recommend Sigrid Nunez’ novel, The Friend, which explores grief through a relationship between a woman and a dog she unexpectedly comes to adopt.
Thanks Jason and Matthew for taking the time to answer all of our questions.
Find all of our bookseller responses to this questionnaire here.
A deep dive into book prices in Canada from our upcoming Canadian Book Consumer Study 2023.