By Ashley Cowell
Local book lovers have been hit with the closure of another independent store.
Book City, one of Toronto’s largest independently owned bookstores, announced on Twitter that it will be closing its doors after almost 40 years.
Our Annex location is closing this spring, Stop by soon for amazing deals. Thank you to all our great Annex neighbours and customers! (1/2)
— Book City (@BookCityTO) January 16, 2014
A second tweet revealed that the Danforth, Beaches and Yonge/St. Clair locations will remain open. Their High Park location closed in 2012.
Book City is not the first to shut stores. Small, independent book retailers have gone under in waves, notably in the late 1990s when Chapters and Indigo boomed and again when the global recession affected many independently owned businesses in the late 2000s. Large online entities, such as Amazon, also offer an obstacle.
Here is a look back at some of those lost book stores, once a staple of Toronto’s culture.