Shopping
Inside Penguin’s bright, beautiful new bookstore
Attention, book lovers: your chances of running into Margaret Atwood just increased tenfold, thanks to Penguin Random House Canada’s new bookstore. The publisher’s first permanent shop is located in the lobby of its Front Street West office, and it packs a lot of reading material into 158 square feet. There are about 300 titles (including those from the Drop Caps and tiny Pocket Penguins series), tucked into sliding shelves that are designed to look like giant books and disappear into the wall, and a slew of book merch, like Moby-Dick t-shirts and Pride and Prejudice mugs. Company staff—editors and designers alike—man the store and dole out quality reading recommendations. “We hope to help visitors find their next great book,” says chief operating officer Robert Wheaton. “And if we don’t carry it, we’ll call Book City, for instance, to put it on hold.” Here’s a closer look inside the space.