S. Worthen | Weblog

Chapters-Indigo is the largest bookstore chain in Canada. They have something like 40 percent of the book market here. Two or so years ago, they were two different chains, the two largest in the country. So when Indigo launched a takeover bid for Chapters, of course it made huge amounts of news. That news included various profile articles about Heather Reisman, the CEO of Indigo. At least one of the articles mentioned that she lived in the Toronto area and stopped by the flagship store now and again. That store is the one closest to campus.

Anyways, I was quite proud of myself when I realized/recognize that the nicely dressed woman with the elegant handbag talking to Indigo staff near the door was none other than Heather Reisman herself. I have enough local knowledge now to recognize the CEO of the locally-based national bookstore chain when I see her there. Especially given it was for the biggest book launch of the year.

The event itself was well-attended but not insane. There were maybe 200 or so people there. The books were stored in a huge box, wrapped in plastic and draped in heavy metal chains, out in the middle of the store for most of the time. There was tasty lemon cake, with an image of the book cover on it, and a magician wandered around doing card tricks.

Extra bonus: To pick up my copy, I stood in the pre-order line for people whose last names begin with L-Z. This line was fairly short, but stretched conveniently down the aisle of Fantasy books.

I ran into several people I know. We knew we'd meet up with theengineer there, but running into Karen and Ian, plus Craig Fraser, was a pleasant surprise. I'm glad we went.

I turns out we could have gotten the adult cover - which Colin coveted - but I much prefer the cover aimed at children and it seemed silly to buy more than one copy of the book. So we have the lively phoenix drawing instead of the one which looks to me like a Hapsburgian spray-painted bird sculpture. But I'm probably being too harsh on it.