Ever want to know which children’s books Dennis Lee recommends? Who Jennifer Robson is reading? Or which author Drew Hayden Taylor thinks is a must?

In a collaborative effort between authors and bookstores, book lovers across the country will be able to get reading recommendations from some of their favourite writers in a national event called Authors for Indies.

“Authors and indie bookstores are a long-standing marriage, we depend on them, their ‘handselling’ us,” says Toronto author Guy Gavriel Kay, who will be at Book City on the Danforth on Saturday. “An author has no better ally than a bookstore staffer who loves their work. And the difficulties, well-documented, of booksellers today deserve a response from writers.”

He’ll be joining around 600 authors at more than 120 bookstores across Canada. (For the record, he’s reading Virginia Woolf’s Orlando right now, and will be recommending H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald.)

The idea began with B.C. author Janie Chang and was sparked by Indies First, a campaign started in the U.S. a few years ago by the writer Sherman Alexie.

“It drives business to the small, local, independent bookstores, strengthens the relationship, raises awareness in the community of the importance of the bookstores and I thought somebody ought to do this in Canada,” Chang says.

She reached out to others within the industry: the B.C. Booksellers Association; the Retail Council of Canada; Hal Wake, of the Vancouver International Writers Festival, who recruited Ann-Marie MacDonald as the face of the campaign.

“I think (Authors for Indies) is a really great opportunity for independent booksellers to remind readers about the very physical and very human presence of bookstores,” says Sarah Ramsey, manager of the Bloor West Book City.

The small independent chain had shuttered two of its five stores, most recently its flagship Annex location, but it’s back up to four stores. It moved back to Bloor West Village, just a few doors from location it closed in 2012 after two decades, when Chapters left the neighbourhood early in 2014.

If the statistics are anything to go by, independent bookstores are turning a corner after years of struggle.

“In 2014, the indies we monitor had a very good bounceback year in sales,” says Noah Genner, the CEO of BookNet Canada. “They were up year over year in unit sales about 3 to 4 per cent.”

It’s a combination of plateauing ebook sales and the indie stores that survived “taking part in things like Authors for Indies . . . they’re really building community around their stores.”

Lesley Fletcher from the Retail Council of Canada notes that when she started working with independent bookstores a year and a half ago “there had been a pretty steady closing of stores all over the country and there was some big worry about whether people could even make it work. . . . Last year, a whole bunch of our members had their best year ever.

“Not as many stores are closing and I’m talking to five or six people who are getting ready to open bookstores in the next year,” she says.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

See authorsforindies.com for a full listing of bookstores and authors participating across Canada on May 2.

GTA participants

Another Story Bookshop (315 Roncesvalles Ave.)

A Novel Spot Bookshop (270 The Kingsway)

Bakka Phoenix (84 Harbord St.)

Blue Heron Books (62 Brock St. W., Uxbridge)

Book City (2354 Bloor St. W.; 348 Danforth Ave.; 1430 Yonge St.; 1950 Queen St. E.)

Eat Your Words (778 Annette St.)

Ella Minnow Children’s Bookstore (1915 Queen St. E.)

Forsters’ Book Garden (266 Queen St. South, Bolton)

Glad Day Bookshop (598 Yonge St.)

Knowledge Bookstore (177 Queen St. W., Brampton)

Mabel’s Fables Bookstore (662 Mount Pleasant Rd.)

Type Books (883 Queen St. W.)

University of Toronto Bookstore (214 College St.)