James29 wrote:I will probably be in Montreal this summer for a week. If it coincides with any sort of get together I'd likely be able to go. I don't know Montreal at all and would love to find some good bookstores for French material.
Lots of bookstores which by default will be stocked with books in French. A couple major chain stores: Renaud-Bray, Archambault (also a music store), and Indigo in one of the malls downtown.
There are also independent and used bookstores. Books won't be dirt cheap but the selections are usually of good quality. There's a great cluster of them on Avenue du Mont-Royal mostly east of Rue Saint-Denis (Montreal east - otherwise known as basically north) and a few other ones on Rue Ste Catherine just about a block off of Saint-Denis. Also near there at Berri-UQAM metro there's a great international news stand and the Grande Bibliothèque (BaNQ) which can be fun for browsing. If I'm not mistaken, during the summer I believe there are bouquinistes in the little street behind the Grande Bibliothèque as well. For really cheap books, check out the thrift store chain Fripe-Prix Renaissance (also good for other thrift store shopping of course). There are also quite a few "micro-bibliothèques"/take a book leave a book boxes on various streets and alleyways (Montreal neighborhoods have a great network of alleyways including a Ruelle Verte initiative to spruce them up and make them nice, attractive places). I can keep an eye on good locations for those if there's interest. Some independent cafes have take a book leave a book collections as well and sometimes people just dump huge collections of books and videotapes on the sidewalk (check out the @fucknomtl Instagram to get an idea of the stuff people throw out onto the streets) - if you'll be around July 1st that's moving day so there's bound to be a ton of stuff dumped on the street.
The universities also should have bookstores - official ones and coop ones. The Francophone universities are UQAM which is very central in the Latin Quarter (Berri-UQAM metro) and Université de Montréal which is less so (but near L'Oratoire Saint Joseph). The other major universities, McGill and Concordia, are anglophone but they might have book selections in French.
There are also some specialty bookstores: BDs (especially in and beyond the Latin Quarter on Saint-Denis as well as an iconic one Drawn & Quarterly in the Mile End), travel, cooking (at Marché Jean-Talon, the largest open air market in North America), Spanish, Italian, anarchist, feminist, and what could be of special interest, foreign lanaguges: Michel Fortin on Saint-Denis (3714 Saint-Denis between St Louis Square/Rue Cherrier and Avenue des Pins).
Here's a map with a bunch of places marked:
https://www.google.com/maps/placelists/list/1RHNlUbWvf9hUnOc7uIO9V4EWXPA?hl=en*edit* Oh and one place I forgot! If you happen to visit Quebec City while here (a few hours away, accessible by train or by bus with Orléans Express or by
covoiturage, worth an overnight trip) a major destination for literature fans is the
Maison de la littérature.