Glad Day Bookshop

I’ve been buying books at this store since the late 70’s. It has a fantastic selection of GBLT material and more. This store is an icon and we need to continue to support this valuable part of our heritage. It’s hard enough for booksellers to survive the online world as it is, much less such an important store as Glad Day. Support your independent businesses!!!

Glad Day has been a touchstone for me ever since I first visited in Toronto. One of the few explicitly GLBT-​themed bookstores left in North America, the bookshop has a vast selection of books both new and rare and a knowledgeable, helpful staff. I come by the place on a regular basis looking for new literature at affordable prices.
The bookstore almost closed earlier this year, a fate averted when it was bought by a pool of several dozen community investors who wanted to relaunch the bookstore as a community hub. So far, things seem to be going well: I attended a play reading on the bookstore’s upper level, a spacious gallery with a great view of Yonge Street that rents out for $ 20 an hour.

Glad Day is that bookstore upstairs on Yonge near Wellesley, with the pink neon sign. From the outside it has the air of a seedy porn palace, which considering the neighbourhood, one might expect.
It’s actually a very cool little bookstore with all sorts of gay interest books, calenders and magazines. Their selection is extensive and comparable to the Toronto Women’s Bookstore or This Ain’t the Rosedale Library.
The staff has always been friendly and helpful.
Glad Day Bookshop is a pioneer in the fight for anti-​censorship and gay rights in Toronto. They had a lot of legal problems, while hetero bookstores were left alone, but they are still open.
And they sell poppers!