New Kid on the Block … Sort of

Posted 18 September, 2007 in Book News |

Okay, so obviously Ben McNally isn’t new to the world of bookselling in Toronto, but his newly opened Bay Street bookstore — the eponymous Ben McNally Books — is.

It’s got its own Web site and has already been profiled in the Globe and Mail, wherein McNally, with characteristic sly humour, defers a query about his benefactors in the new endeavour:

He is vague about his backers, offering only that they were people who had a specific interest in him and who also had low financial expectations. “They’re not neophyte businessmen,” he says. “They knew that this wasn’t the best use of their money.”

I haven’t had a chance to check out the store yet, but I fully intend to. If you’re in Toronto, you should do likewise.

Contact info is as follows:

366 Bay Street
Toronto, ON M5H 4B2
Tel. 416-361-0032
info@benmcnallybooks.com

Go on, support independent bookselling. You know you wanna.

[UPDATE: The Quill & Quire online is reporting today that there is a bit of controversy surrounding the old Books & Brunch series that McNally administered while he was manager of the Toronto location of Nicholas Hoare Books. Seems McNally has inaugurated his own Sunday brunch series, called the Globe and Mail / Ben McNally Brunch Series, prompting Nicholas Hoare to suggest that McNally “poached” the idea when he left.

For their part, Nicholas Hoare Books have hired Nicholas Pashley, former purchasing manager for trade publications at the University of Toronto Bookstore, who enjoyed a restful retirement of two months’ length, to act as “ambassador at large” for the store. One of Pashley’s duties will be to administer a rebranded version of Books & Brunch, which they are calling Hoare’s High Tea.

McNally may have Globe sponsorship, but there’s no question in my mind who’s got the better name.]

1 comment to “New Kid on the Block … Sort of”

Panic, September 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm:

• Hoare’s High Tea.
  *sporfle*

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