How A Family Bookstore Became A City Landmark

Two Recent Book Recommendations

Meet Russell Books In Victoria

Hi, I'm David Jackson Berkeley, the founder of the Narrative Exchange. Featuring the Bookshop Podcast, the Lunch with an Order Literary Series in Southern California, writing workshops and the Narrative Exchange Bookshop. Here at the Bookshop Podcast, I explore the world of books through conversations with authors, independent bookshop owners, booksellers, and publishing professionals to keep literature alive. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share it, and leave a review wherever you listen. You're listening to episode 322. Okay, I'm going to start this episode by giving you two book recommendations, both of which I've just finished reading. The first is by an Irish author out of Belfast in Northern Ireland, and her name is Jan Carson. Jan has been on the show multiple times, and I've just finished reading her new novel, Few and Far Between, which comes out in the UK and Ireland. I think in the next couple of weeks. It won't be out in the US until July 28th, 2026. So make sure you pre-order it now from your local indie bookshop. The other book is Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin. Oh my goodness, this is a gorgeous book. It's not a long novel, it's easy to read. Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin is now available in the US. So make sure you go to your local indie bookshop, pre-order Few and Far Between by Jan Carson, and pick up a copy of Celestial Lights by Cecile Pinn. And let me know what you think of both of these books. And here's this week's episode. Russell Books Limited is a third-generation family-owned company founded in Montreal in 1961. It began as a 300-square foot, one-aisle second-hand bookstore and gradually grew into the largest used antiquarian and new bookstore in town. In 1991, Reg Russell, the founder of the store, opened a Victoria branch with his daughter Diana and her husband Ron Deepole on the 700 block of Fort Street. Ron and Diana are the current owners of Russell Books, while their daughter, Andrea Mittner, and her husband Jordan manage the company. Hi Andrea and Jordan and welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.

Oh, thank you for having us. We're so excited.

Andrea And Jordan’s Path In

Yeah, we feel very honored to be a part of your show. Thank you so much. Well, it's an honor to have you both here on the show, too. Let's begin with learning a little about each of you, about your background and what your lives looked like before stepping into your roles as third generation managers of Russell Books.

Yeah, well, that's really good. Yeah, I mean, I Russell Books has always been a part of my family. Uh, Russell Books started uh back in the early 60s with my grandfather, Reginald Russell. And so books have been in my life. I've been surrounded by them my entire life. I grew up on the west coast of Canada, and uh our store in Montreal was in uh Montreal, it was back east across the country. And so we would go and visit often. And um, the bookstore has always been a part of our lives, and and uh I've thoroughly we've thoroughly been enjoyed it, and and uh I've been able to be fortunate enough to also include my husband in this. Uh but before that, I I grew up in in Victoria, British Columbia. I did my schooling, my university at the University of Victoria in physical education. I thought, you know, maybe one day I'll be working in the school system with children and kids. And I, as I love kids so much, having four children of my my own, um, but I was always drawn to the bookstore. And the bookstore has always been a part of my life at a young age as well. And uh when we opened in the early 90s here in Victoria, uh at the Vic the bookstore, I was working there part-time while going to school throughout my my schooling. And um, yeah, I've just always it's always been a part of my life, and I was fortunate enough to segue on to my president at Jordan.

I finished I finished my uh degree in environmental science just shortly before Andrea finished school, and she did a co-op, like a volunteer co-op at the YMYWCA in Belize to finish her year. So I I worked part-time at the bookstore kind of while waiting for her to finish university. And then uh we went to Belize and worked for worked and then traveled through Central America for six months. And then when we came back, you know, to get our feedback on the ground, we thought, well, we'll just work a little bit at the bookstore. And then wouldn't you know it? I mean, it's it's just it's never a dull moment. We've both been there. Well, that's uh like 20, 20, uh it's 26 years for me now at the store. And Andrew started when she was I think it I think it opened when she was 13, 14 years old. So it's it's something you just uh yeah, I we've just never never gotten uh it's never a dull moment.

Belize Culture Shock And Travel Lessons

So yeah, yeah. Well, as I love South America, I would really like to hear more about Belize. How was your time there?

Belize Oh, amazing. Uh yeah, it was I had uh I encouraged her to do Belize because I saw you know the photos of uh white sand beaches and blue water and stuff. But we uh yeah, and swimming with manatees and crystal clear water. But um, you know, once it was definitely culture shock when we got we lived in Belize City, which uh the crime rate's very high and that, and and we were working with these kids that were like it was it was a real real eye-opener for us as you know, like I said, young university students going and and being dropped in this area that you know we thought it would just be only paradise. But you really you really get to see, and and I think the really neat thing was actually living in a place for for that long. You get you know, at first, the first few days we were we were like honestly, I think we were a little scared to go outside on our own. And then by the end of the trip, after we'd gone and seen the rest of Central America, coming back to Belize was like home to us. But uh, but yeah, I remember one night we were out and it was after dark, and I remember some Belizean friends there, they saw the two of us and we're like, what are you two doing out at night? Because it's like not at that time, anyways. This was a long time ago. In that neighborhood, in that you know, in downtown Belize City, it it wasn't safe for tourists to be wandering around.

But there's so much beauty in the surrounding area, yeah.

We did get to see the white sand beaches and the blue water and the manatees and everything. So yeah, it was the people home and the food. Oh, yeah, we made lifelong friends there.

Yeah, I think it's such a gift to be able to live in another country and uh see another culture, see how people live each day. I encourage both of my sons, now 31 and 34, to travel and live overseas. And now I have my younger son and his wife who are expecting a baby living in Ireland. So um that's gonna be hard.

Oh wow.

The Origin Story In Montreal

But I still believe it's the best gift you can give yourself is to travel and live overseas. It's so true. Yeah. Can you walk us through the history of Russell books, the where, when, and why, and what prompted the early move from Montreal to Victoria?

Yeah, I love telling this story. So yes, I uh this is uh it is very special to me. And it it uh it all started actually um with my grandfather in their dining room in Montreal in Lachine. And uh my grandfather was a huge collector of books. He just loved to read, he loved to collect books, every genre, every every everything that you can think about, he just loved and he loved to find deals. So we would go to garage sales, he would find things along the way, he would go into bookstores in Montreal, and so he collected so many books, so many books that they piled the walls of the dining room and so so much so that you couldn't pull your chair out to to eat. And so it got to a point where my grandmother was said, Okay, I've had enough. You need to get rid of the books or move the books or do something with the books. And so that sort of spearheaded the the move from uh from working in a bank and where he was working in in downtown Montreal to thinking about maybe we should open a open up a store. And so a space next door to the bank, a 300 square foot space, opened up in uh downtown Montreal, close to where he worked at the bank. And uh he was able to open up the store and fill it with his personal collection, uh, which I find is really cool. But he also couldn't stop his day job because they had children, three kids, and he needed to continue to create a uh a living for the family. And so he continued to work at the bank. So he had his mother work in the store for him, and he would come in at lunch times and finish work early and come in and finish the day at the bookshop. And um, yeah, he just he he just started at such a small, small location of 300 square feet while working, and then another space opened up in in downtown Montreal on St. Antoine Street, a large space. And so it went from the 300 square foot space into another space in downtown uh Montreal, and it had a mezzanine and it was a big, beautiful old building and a great backroom for storage of all the books that he loved. And so he had created great relationships with the locals there, um, and and many, many different publishers and distributors because that's broadened his uh his reach because of the space that he had, he was able to hold now new books and remainders and and it was uh it was right across from the newspaper there.

So he had a uh they often joke that when there was a fire, a fire alarm or something like that at the newspaper office, afterwards they'd have to go over and get all the employees and bring them back to work because they'd they'd all flood over there on their lunch breaks, yeah.

Expansion And The Move West

Yeah, so it was great. So he had the store in downtown on St. Antoine Street in in Montreal uh for decades. And um, and then uh he also opened up a branch in Westmount on Sherbrooke Street in in Montreal as well, just as he had uh two sons. Yeah, so one of them opened up a store there. Um, and then uh it came that in the early 90s he he was often encouraging my parents who who were both in the on the west coast in Victoria to come on, open up a store. We need another branch of Russell Books uh in uh in Victoria would be a fantastic spot. So they'd always thought about doing that. My mom um was a teacher, and my my father was uh a pharmaceutical rep, and uh they both stopped what they were doing and decided to devote a hundred percent of their their efforts into to uh to doing to doing the bookstore here. And so they they found a location um which was fantastic. They they in the heart of downtown Victoria, um, they found the location after researching and studying where would be the best spot for it, and then this beautiful large space opened up um that they opened up in 1991, August 1st of 1991, and and uh and it it stood there for for a few decades until um 19, I sorry, 2019, when we opened up our new space uh to where we are today, which is just across the street. So how many Russell bookstores are there now? Um well, when in the late 1990s, um, the building that they were in in Montreal uh was expropriated, and it was timely as well because my grandfather was in his mid-90s and still going into work. And anyways, so it the time came that they needed to, you know, resolve the the bookstore, dissolve the bookstore, and a lot of the books actually have been moved out to here, to Victoria to be a part of our inventory. And um, the other store in Westmount, we had to sell as well at that time. But um, it's uh as far as I know, it's still up and running, and it's one of the longest standing bookstores in all of uh Montreal. So yeah, it's still the legacy continues. Um, we feel fortunate to be able to continue the legacy that my grandfather once started in uh in the early 60s. Um, and yeah, I just feel really, really fortunate that my parents decided that, you know, okay, yes, let's let's do this and continue it. And and uh they really, really was were the ones that were able to anchor it here in Victoria and put the work in seven days a week. I remember them working.

Yeah, I mean, being a bookseller or a bookshop owner, it's a lot of work.

Yeah, it's a lot of work to start your business.

I mean, everybody, because it was uh where where our store is uh on Fort Street in Victoria, it's called uh Antique Row. And at the time when they opened, there was tons of little bookshops. And I remember Andrew's dad, Ron, saying that they all thought he was crazy because he was opening up uh kind of closer to the downtown core and in a much bigger building. And they said all of them said he'll he'll never make it. So I think that was probably his going though. Because I know he definitely had some lean times in the beginning, and it was a a very big space to fill. Yeah, and uh so I I know they had uh they put in a lot of years of hard work to kind of get it going.

Victoria Support And Who Shops Here

And and we are so fortunate too. Uh Victoria is a big book town, like there are a lot of bookstores here, great, wonderful bookstores, and and Victoria has a lot of local support, like there's a lot of uh tons of people reading and lots of tourists, and yeah, we just couldn't be more grateful for the support that we received from from everybody.

Now, Victoria has seen significant demographic changes in recent years. How has immigration influenced both your customer base and the way you curate the shop?

Well, that's interesting. Uh myself, I come from a actually smaller town up the island, so Victoria's always been the like the big city for me. And and I've always thought it was uh quite diverse. I I don't know that I've necessarily noticed uh a big change in our customer demographic as far as uh you know noticeably different different countries and uh immigration affecting it so much. But I definitely see it like in our uh in our staffing, we have people from all over the world working for us. I mean, we we already have a really diverse group as far as ages. Like we've got, well, our our youngest daughter's in grade eight, and she she comes in and helps out, but we've got high school students all the way up to you know, uh people who have retired uh working for us, but now we've got people from from all over the world who work for us, which I mean, it's just a fantastic thing to have all these uh uh different perspectives and and cultures working for us, and certainly makes staff parties enjoyable. Uh but the biggest shift I think I've seen in our customer base is really uh younger people. Like Victoria is, as Andrew mentioned, uh it's well, we've got the best weather in all of Canada, so retirees are are plentiful, you know, there's the universities, but I've seen a lot more, especially in our in our news store in the last you know six years, uh, high school students. After school, we get an influx of of uh you know kids coming in, which I think is really fantastic.

Many booksellers I speak with tell me that over the years they see different generations of families coming into the bookshop. For example, they might have had uh a high school kid come in 15, 20 years ago, and now they're bringing their own children into the store. I think that must be so rewarding.

Yeah, we've we actually had um uh unfortunately he passed away recently, but we had an employee working for us who uh he wrote a book called Timmy the Timmy the Tugboat, and it's a famous book from when when I was a kid, and he uh he'd actually ended up in our store, people would bring in the book that they got, he signed it for them as kids, they'd bring in that same book to him, and then he would sign it again to their child, which is just so touching and really neat to see that that uh you know the lifelong love of reading getting passed down.

How They Curate New Used Rare

I love to hear that. Yeah. Now, how do you approach curating the shop day-to-day? How do new used and rare books fit into the overall organization? And when it comes to book buying, how do you decide when to trust data over instinct or vice versa?

Oh geez, that's a that's a good question.

I mean, the nice thing, our store has been around for a long time too, and our specialty, I would say, is having everything. Like that, that is that is a big thing for us. We carry every genre, we carry every category. We we carry the new, the used, the old, the remainder, the signed book. So it's very, very unique in that way. But Jordan, you as the buyer, I mean you have a perspective on what you know.

The the curating of it, it's interesting as a used bookstore because we we really do. I mean, people come in what is it, four or five days a week trading in books. And and Andrew does the estates. So as far as curating goes, sometimes you know, you'll go to Andrew will go to someone, a prof a retired professor, and and you'll all of a sudden have an influx of a thousand books on the American Civil War. And then, you know, the week a week, the next week you'll have uh someone's father-in-law's uh entire set of train books. So the the used books, they just and I think that's the magic of a used book store is that you never know from day to day what you're what you're gonna find and what you're gonna see. So I th I think that's that's uh well I guess it's I should say an important thing, but that's the neat thing about the store is that we have customers who come in, we have customers who come in every single day because they never know what's gonna pop up on the shelves. So uh and then of course for me that's the thing that I think that's one of the things I love the most too, is I never know what that next customer is gonna have in their box or bag. Are they gonna have a a rare book from the the 16th century, or is it, you know, yesterday's latest bestseller that they've already read and want to pass it on?

That brings up another question for me. So when you are curating a bookstore and you have some copies of a new book and the same book in used copies, do you put them next to each other on the bookshelves or separately?

Oh yeah, with the um so at our at our in the well, we'll call it the old store, but the store across the street was, as Andrea said, her parents started it in the in the 80s and then and then we expanded to another floor and expanded to the store next door and down below, and there was stacks and piles. It was your classic um, I'll say messy used bookstore, treasure trove. So at that store, we used to keep the new and used separate because if we put the new with the used, it it would be lost and we'd never find it. At the new store though, uh, you know, we're computerized, we've got a warehouse, we're much more organized. So now uh there's less of a chance we're gonna lose that new book. So now we do put them side by side, and then we do have uh, you know, a few uh displays and stuff of the latest, the latest top sellers. Uh, but even that will have uh discount books mixed together with it.

So even our classic too. Yeah, they're over to the side a bit. Um but yeah, we sort of try to intermingle everything.

Strange Things Found In Books

Bookshop Santa Cruz here in California does the same thing. Uh I actually like it because quite often I'll be wanting to pick up used books for the Lunch with an Authors series that I do, and we kind of raffle them off at the end of the event. And it's easier for me if they're right next to the new books. I worked for our local bookshop for a while and it is new, mostly used books, um, a little area of new books too. But what used to make me giggle is every now and again I would open a used book and there would be something inside it, whether it was a bookmark or a grocery store list or something like that inside the book. So with this in mind, what's the strangest or most memorable item you've ever found tucked inside a used book?

So for me, well, it'd be a better story if I knew how we knew, but but I remember we got um this strange thing in a book, and then we found it was sharp, it was shark skin. Like a but but again, I I can't remember now in my memory how we knew. Either either we found it, you know, when we were buying it and then showed it to the person, like, oh that's you know, I don't remember the rest of the story, but that was definitely the most unusual thing. And I mean we see a lot, you know, we see money, you know, bills, money and bills from all over the world, and and uh what what I love is seeing the old uh the boarding passes from airplanes and see you know the date to and from and the date and that that those are really neat. And then the and I guess probably the best thing that I find is is you know those very old greeting cards, like very old greeting Christmas greeting cards, those I think are really special. Very special.

Yeah. I mean, if we could uh keep all the bookmarks that we get out of books, we could fill an entire mile one wall full of full of bookstars from around the world.

Oh, I love that idea. Sometimes when I'm out and about and I always have a a book in my purse, uh and if I've forgotten a bookmark, because I never turn down the edges of a book, uh, I'll just grab a grocery store receipt or you know, a parking ticket or something. Like that. I think it's funny the things you pick up and and put in a book.

Well, yeah, to-do lists and that. Actually, there was one time it was quite funny. I was uh it was during the pandemic. So I was working at the warehouse and uh and and just going through stuff by myself there, and I was excited because I found this uh five dollar American bill in a book. I was like, oh great. I found you know actual useful money. And then I realized I'm like, oh wait, and Andrea had gone through our bookshelves recently, and I realized it was my own five dollars I put in a in an old travel book from before. And so there you go. Got it back anyway.

The Guinness World Record Book Tower

Got it back. Oh my goodness. It was lucky that you were the one that found it. Yeah. Andrea, I think this next question might be for you because Russell Books is known for the Guinness World Record Book Tower. How did that idea come about and what was it like to pull it off?

Yeah, well, you know what? My uh having four young children, a Guinness book has always been a bedside uh pickup. So we we always are looking at it, and the kids, my kids have always been fascinated by it. Um, and so I guess just uh being a part of my life, even as a kid, too, and kind of so interesting. And uh, we thought, okay, well, wouldn't it be neat for our grand opening to do something really special? Um, so our grand opening was quite quite a big spectacular move for us because we moved into a larger space. Um and we thought, okay, let's do something great. And it has these big high ceilings and two floors. Uh, so we had the space to do something quite spectacular, but I hadn't really thought it through very well.

Yeah, if you know, if you knew Andrea, this is not her craziest idea.

But I thought it was really cool to see if we could build the tallest stack. And so I was like thinking about it, and then I was thinking about I, you know, looking through the Guinness, it wasn't hadn't ever been done before. And I contacted them directly. And after contacting them, they they got back to me immediately. And I'm like, oh, so this must be good. And then I thought, okay, well, wouldn't it be even better if we actually did the tallest stack of books with Guinness World Record books? Because, you know, what are the chances of someone being able to replicate that? You don't want someone to go around and beat it the next day.

And it was not easy to get that many books.

It was easy to get all the all the books that we had managed to acquire. And so we actually, I thought we had enough, so we had, but we didn't. So I was like, okay, we got to find a way to get more books. So I wrote we're we reached out to the community, and the community came back in droves with all their personal copies of the stuff.

We were giving out five dollar gift cards certificates. Yeah, we gave out gift certificates. People got in there, they put a ransom on all the Guinness Book Worlds.

Yeah, so it was actually quite cool because it also made the community feel like they were a part of it as well. So, anyways, we yeah, stuff people mention it. Yeah, yeah. So it was quite cool to, you know, everybody. So we had the I think it started in the early, it was it in the 50s or the the skin as old. So we we feel as though we had every year to the date that we had done it in 2019, and it was it was really cool uh to to actually think through how to build this stack so that it would stand. It was not as easy as as putting a pile. So, how many books did you end up using? That's a good question. Actually, I don't have that information on the top of my head, but it was a lot.

So because we actually had they were kind of wobbly too. So it'd be different if you had brand new stuff.

So we built it to 19 meters over 19 meters tall. And so we have a line inside the store of where we conquered to, and we've got a big plaque of conquering the Guinness World Records.

I remember we did it one night we did a practice build and we got it to maybe 15 feet or 20 feet or something like that. Yeah, and then uh we left and then came back the next morning and it had it had collapsed and was all over the escalators and everything.

So we need to actually methodically think about it now. And we're not engineers, we're not we're not people that can that have the thoughts of putting this together, but it was really, really fun, and it was really neat to have our staff a part of it because we've got these this wonderful group of people working for us. We had our children, our children's friends involved in it, our family, our extended friends.

Having everyone coming and watching.

Yeah, it was a big, it was a big, big, uh, big detail.

It sounds like a wonderful community event.

Yeah, it was really fun. And having the the Guinness World Record uh gentlemen and its official, you know, uh outfit on and and uh being able to award us with it was uh was very special and really uh you know great for our our family and and the book book community.

What They’re Reading Right Now

Okay, let's talk books. What are you currently both reading, either for pleasure or for inspiration?

Well, I I wouldn't say I'm in a rut, but anything by PG Woodhouse. I don't know if you know him. I I just go back to those over and over again. They're just delightful.

I often look over at Jordan at night and he's giggling away at this chuckling away to himself about something that's written. Then he'll he'll read out the paragraph of what he's read. And we've got he's got shelves and collections of it at home here. He's got some funny. He loves it, among the many other books that are stacked and stacked throughout the house.

The most recent uh contemporary fiction that fit sticks in my mind though is uh it was actually he was one of the first employees we ever hired. Uh and at the time he was a philosophy student here in Victoria, and then he went on to the U of T, and then he went to, I believe, Harvard for a bit. And he he just popped in the store not too long ago with his with his uh advanced reading copy. And I didn't even know he had a book in the works or anything like that. And he said it was something that he'd always kind of wanted to do, and then after he finished with Harvard, he was you know at a bit of a loose end of what to do, so he thought he'd write a book. And it's uh Scott Alexander Howard, it's called The Other Valley, and it was it was quite the hit. Our staff book club did it, and uh yeah, it was it's just a a beautiful book and and quite an accomplishment for you know, he just like I said, he sat down for two years and and who finished the book, yeah, yeah.

I think in every interview I've I've had with an independent bookshop owner or a bookseller, I'm always amazed, or maybe I'm not amazed, at how many people with PhDs work in a bookshop as a bookseller because they love being around books. Yes, that's true.

Yeah, oh yeah, we've got some very overqualified staff.

And what about you, Andrea? What are you currently reading for inspirational pleasure?

I'm rereading uh The Power of Now by Eckhart Tole, and he's written some wonderful books. Um he just has a the perspective of what he writes about and how he writes it uh is just beautifully done. Um he's actually from uh British Columbia. He's a local guy, and um his books are are well known around the world.

And I guess being from you're you're in Ohio, you said.

Yes, OHI, California.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I'm sure he's come come and done talks there.

Visiting Victoria Trails Coffee And Food

Yeah. Yes, OHI definitely has a spiritual component to it. Um, I have a question for you before we go, and we've just got a few minutes left. If I was to visit Victoria and I love to hike, are there some hiking trails you can suggest that are close by? Uh historical sites to visit, and a couple of great coffee shops.

Victoria is so well known for its outdoors. We have a lot of people that bike and hike and run. Um, we have have beautiful mountains here and beautiful forests and so Gold Stream, I think. Yeah, Gold Stream is beautiful. Mount Mount Venice has a beautiful uh outlook at the top of the mountain, and it's an achievable you know, goal for for the average beginner to to challenging um hiker. I have there's people that we have we have lakes here, beautiful lakes and and um tons of beautiful scenery. The ocean surrounds us in downtown Victoria here. Um we're very, very fortunate. There's lots of local shops, there's lots of local coffee shops. There's just on our street alone, we have the Dutch bakery that has been in Victoria for you know over five decades. We have uh you know the crust bakery that's a trendy bakery, we've got coffee shops.

The two best bakeries in Victoria. Well, arguably the two best bakeries in Victoria, Crest and the Dutch, are right across the street from us. And as far as like you mentioned, uh a good coffee shop, I don't think you can walk 10 feet without walking past a good coffee shop in Victoria.

Chuckle that Victoria's got tons of great restaurant, the restaurant we've got to be. The food scenes to um uh Dine Around, which features 40 uh local restaurants that featuring their their best flavors and and foods.

Yeah, they put out a special menu for this time of year to get you know, get people back out.

Yeah, and it's just it's just it's a beautiful, beautiful place to visit. There's lots of great local shops, curated stores, and um the the weather here is beautiful all year round. Do you have snow in the city in winter? Sometimes we haven't yet this year, however, the rest of Canada on the other side of our island.

Yeah, even yeah, right now the the big storm is hitting everywhere.

Yeah, it's certainly been a tough winter for the east coast and the Midwest.

Yeah, here we got uh it got as cold as not minus one, and that that's pretty cold for us.

Yeah, there's been some brutal temperatures on the east coast.

I looked at the the records, and I think for Victoria, the coast coldest it's ever gotten is minus 15.

But that's not even no. We're about we're about zero.

Yeah, if it gets to zero here, we're we're all shivering. And if there's if there's this much snow on the ground, this city.

Yeah, I've been to Toronto, Vancouver Island, but I've never been to Victoria, and it looks absolutely stunning.

Oh, you must come. Victoria, we would welcome you with open arms. Like honestly, Victoria is very well known for being able to host people greatly. And like I said, there's tons to do and tons to see. We will we will welcome you and greet you here with for sure. We'd love to have you.

Closing Thanks And Subscribe

Well, that sounds wonderful. Andrea and Jordan, it's been great having you on the show, and you both seem so passionate and excited about the work you do. This is so great. Thank you for so much.

It's been a real five.

Yeah, thank you.

Love what you're doing.

Thank you. And likewise, you've been listening to my conversation with Andrea and Jordan from Russell Books in Victoria, Canada. Thank you for joining me on the Bookshop Podcast. This show is written and produced by me, Mandy Jackson Beverly. With music by Brian Beverly, my personal assistant is Kayleigh Ditchinger, and my graphic designer is Alexandra Mooney. If you enjoyed the episode, please follow, share, and leave a review wherever you listen. For more information, go to www.thenarrative exchange.com. Until next time, here's to the books that shape us and the bookshops that bring us together.