Best Independent Bookstore

GOLD WINNER

Venus Envy
1727 Barrington Street
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SILVER WINNER

Woozles
6013 Shirley street
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BRONZE WINNER

Bookmark
5686 Spring Garden Road
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While the shelves of Venus Envy are filled with dildos and leather, there’s also a growing section of the store that stocks books of all sorts. From children’s books on gender to books on race and decolonization and queer and trans-authored fiction and non-fiction, owner Marshall Haywood says “since we opened in the early 2000s we’ve always been a book store as well as a sex shop.” Venus Envy is “thrilled” to report that its book sales over the past few years have been higher than ever. Each book in the shop is chosen with care, making each sale as special for the seller as the buyer. “It’s just so it’s so gratifying to create a curated selection of books to have and to be so well received,” says Haywood. “To have people come in and say like ‘wow, what a great collection.’”