A Visit to Toronto's Famous Monkey's Paw Bookshop

VRF: Please tell us in detail about the genesis of the idea of Biblio-Mat? Why haven’t anyone else replicated the idea?

SF: To be honest, I don't really know where the germ of the idea came from. I know that I had a lot of kinda cool older books in the basement — stuff too odd or interesting to throw away, but which for one reason or another wasn't likely to sell off the shelves; and I wanted to find a way to get these books into people's hands. I had the sense that if I selected the books for people, rather than giving them any choice in the matter — in other words, providing them with a surprise book — they'd be more likely to actually consider the book on its merits, and perhaps appreciate it. Having a machine (apparently) make the decision added a sensational carnivalesque twist. When I described the idea to my friend Craig Small, he became very excited, and offered to build the machine for me. I guess Craig had an instinct that the finished product would really resonate with people; but to be honest, I was flabbergasted by its popularity.

After we'd had the machine for a while, I came to understand that the reason it suited the shop so well was because it basically provided the Monkey's Paw experience in miniature: for people who didn't have the time, patience, or money to browse the shelves, it was an instantaneous way to get the thrill of bibliographic discovery. Some of my acquaintances in the book trade dismiss the Biblio-Mat as a cheap gimmick, and accuse its users of not being "serious" book people (and indeed our more experienced customers do prefer to spend their time browsing the shelves, rather than feeding tokens into the machine). But having seen literally tens of thousands of budding bibliophiles receive books from the Biblio-Mat, I can attest that its users are mostly curious, open-minded, and prepared to find interest and amusement in whatever the machine selects for them. And through it, we've been able to find homes for countless orphaned old books.

As to why no one has replicated the Biblio-Mat: first of all, I can't say for sure that they haven't... although I've never seen another one anywhere else. But if no one has built another, I suppose the reasons would be as follows: engineering a machine to serve up random books of various dimensions is actually a pretty complicated undertaking; selling hard-to-find books for $3 each is not a lucrative business proposition; and locating sufficient interesting old books to stock the thing is a never-ending challenge. Only a crazy person would ever do it! [Editor’s Note: “New book” vending machines have been around since the 40s.]

VRF: What are your biggest challenges today in running The Monkey’s Paw?

SF: However difficult it may be to sell old books, it's definitely MORE difficult for me to find them (buy them). Although millions of books were printed in the 20th century, the interesting and valuable ones are becoming rather scarce at this point; and to keep up with the demand, I'm constantly scrambling to find more. If I keep the business going for another decade or two, I'll eventually run into a situation where I simply can't find the sorts of books I like to sell, in the quantities necessary. To steal a phrase from the oil industry: I feel like we may have reached "peak book."

VRF: What is the book that you sold, that you wish you did not (rather have kept it for yourself)?

SF: There's not really an answer to this question. If I weren't able to let go of the books — every book — I wouldn't be able to run the business at all. I used to be a book owner/collector/hoarder in my own right; but at some point I discovered that my real joy was in finding and buying books, then in putting them into the hands of new owners — making that "love connection" between people and books. So even if there are books that I miss, and which I may never see again, I still take great comfort in knowing they have found new and loving homes.

VRF: What is the most expensive book you ever sold? Or the rarest book that came you way?

SF: Unlike many of my colleagues in the rare book trade, I don't really care so much about terrifically valuable books. I'd rather sell 20 interesting old books for $50 each (or 50 books for $20 each!) than a single elite rarity for $1,000. That said, I do occasionally come across something quite remarkable, and of course I'm happy to sell it for good money. A particularly scarce item I once turned up was an enormous trilingual lexicon printed in German, Latin, and ancient Greek, published in Alsace in 1587. I happened to find a customer for it on a bitterly cold winter day, when the furnace at my house had broken down; I sold the book for the exact price of a very expensive furnace repair!

VRF: Is there a rare book that you wish you would find?  

SF: Always: the book I would most like to find is the one I've never seen or heard of. It happens more often than you might suppose.

VRF: Your favorite bookstore (other than your own)?

SF: I visit bookshops everywhere I travel, and (at risk of sounding like a snob) am often disappointed by their character and quality. A few exceptions:

— Brattle Book Shop, Boston... the definition of a stately, old-fashioned antiquarian shop, with a delightful bargain/clearance section in the vacant lot next door.

— Un Regard Moderne, Paris... mad source for visual culture, crammed with pictorial books of all sorts.

— Kayo Books, San Francisco... phenomenally entertaining collection of vintage paperbacks (obscure genres and sub-genres, pop culture, and sleaze).