Encore Books & Records: Getting lost in the stacks with owner Sean Madden

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a bookstore is just a bookstore. That’s not the case with Encore Books & Records. The NDG establishment, its brick-and-mortar façade perched proudly on Sherbrooke Street, offers up a feeling of community and connection as a neighbourhood staple for more than two decades.

“But it started well before that,” owner Sean Madden explains.

“My mother was a filmmaker; my father was a playwright and a poet. My parents were very involved in the local arts scene. They hosted a lot of parties. So that was my entire world growing up.”

Rising Action

While passionate about licks and metaphors, Sean’s involvement in the bookselling trade came about during university.

“My dad introduced me to a guy in the antique business when I was studying education. I spent a year hustling. I discovered that antiquing wasn’t for me, but I learned how hard you have to work in the industry.”

“I naturally gravitated toward records after that. My dad gravitated toward books. They made more sense to us. People accumulate these items. They want to pass them on. I figured I could be the middleman and help these things find homes. It was exciting because books and records were something we personally cherished and valued.”

Before opening their shopfront, Sean and his late father Peter spent close to ten years acquiring their inventory.

“I never had a weekend off in my twenties. We visited so many bookstores across Canada and the U.S. I even went on this big road trip with a friend where we slept in a car full of books, records, and weird things like video games. Unfortunately, I got rid of the video games before they made their comeback.”

The Plot Thickens

Despite the long hours hopping from one book sale to the next, Sean admits, “we were lucky that we did a lot of work first.”

Not only does Sean sell books procured through garage sales and auctions, the store also buys books from locals. In a sense, Encore is home to the storied lives of its neighbours.

Sean describes the process of buying used books as finding a way into other people’s lives, a window into their existence: “Every individual has different interests, and you have to trust that they have a reason for those interests.”

“In a way, our goal at Encore is to trust the community. We looked all over the city, but kept coming back to NDG. We lived around here. We knew the people. It was comfortable.”

“Our collection comes from the community and goes to the community,” he continues. “We receive it from them and then pass it back, so, while we have to be selective, we want to honour people’s passions.”

Secondary Characters

Due to this respect for his patrons, Sean never makes a firm decision right away when buying books, a process that he shares with his staff.

“After the pandemic, I decided to hire two managers, which was a huge help. My staff runs the place. They’re super organized when it comes to our sections,” which are eclectic to say the least, from sci-fi and classic literature to an entire shelf on critical theorist Noam Chomsky. Sean’s employees live by the mantra that “the easier it is for us to put something away, the easier it is for the customers to find it.”

“Our collection comes from the community and goes to the community,” he continues. “We receive it from them and then pass it back, so, while we have to be selective, we want to honour people’s passions.”

One of Sean’s staff members is the brains behind Encore’s print and design shop.

“We had the whole studio in the basement, but during the pandemic we started outsourcing. We have some of our designs and a lot of ones in the public domain that we fix up and get ready to print. One of my employees wanted to start that business and kept talking to me about it, and I figured, ‘Okay, let’s do it’.”

“In a way, our goal at Encore is to trust the community. We looked all over the city, but kept coming back to NDG. We lived around here. We knew the people. It was comfortable.”

The print shop is only one of the ways in which Sean showcases various artforms. Encore displays work from local artists, and has hosted tiny desk concerts.

“We’d love to set up a Swinging Sunday with some jazz duos soon. But our main focus is the Encore Poetry Project.”

Sean started the Encore Poetry Project to honour his late father, and help support local artists and writers. It’s been an ongoing development over the years, starting with a simple idea from Peter:

“The poem in the window was my dad’s doing. He posted this poem in the window and welcomed submissions through the mail slot. We got so many that we couldn’t display just one a week. This was about twenty years ago. It didn’t last long because there started to be some local politics and we got bombarded with political poems about the street. We weren’t expecting that.”

Today, the project has developed into a series that runs adjacent to Encore. Sean helps mentor and finance it, while director Inuya Schultz posts poems on their Instagram account (@encorepoetryproject) and runs launch events for their anthologies of poetry and artwork.

Sean and Encore remain involved in the local community through taking part in events like Porchfest, a weekend of free concerts in the area open to the public.

They also donate excess boxes of books to any charity that will take them. “We try and try to find places. We generate so many books it’s hard. But we often get people asking for books. We donated to a charity that supplies books to prisons recently. We’ve had things shipped to Africa. We try to make it a regular thing whenever we can.”

“A place like this is all about people’s curiosity, a sharing of the community. Once you get that, and you can get lost in here, lost in the stacks."

Denouement

“Don’t get me wrong, the neighbourhood has changed a lot, but in a lot of nice ways. Obviously records and tapes are more popular. CDs are getting to be popular again. I think there’s a bit of a younger vibe. It inspires me when the younger crowd comes in here.”

The next generation brings with it a rise in digital media, but Sean is not overly concerned.

“It used to scare me. Kindles were intimidating. They made me anxious. But what’s important is that people are interested in reading and ideas and art. If that’s the case, then they’ll appreciate Encore. And, it’s important that people are curious.”

“A place like this is all about people’s curiosity, a sharing of the community. Once you get that, and you can get lost in here, lost in the stacks. Only then can you find something that you didn’t know you wanted and realize, ‘Wow, it’s perfect’.”

“I think that people will definitely continue to cherish the physicality of music and literature. They’re sick of reading stuff on their screens. We’re forced to do that so much.”

Epilogue

How does Sean feel about the future of independent book and record stores?

“I think that people will definitely continue to cherish the physicality of music and literature. They’re sick of reading stuff on their screens. We’re forced to do that so much.”

Sean views an actual book as a bit of a reprieve. “Even just the idea that you can take a book with you and sit on the metro,” he says. “It can’t be beat.”

“We all need to disconnect and calm down a little. More and more people need to chill and relax. I think the pandemic really helped people understand that. It also helped us all to understand our relationships with our own anxieties. Everything that goes on in our lives. I have to believe in what I do.”

Encore Books & Records is located at 5670 Sherbrooke Street West.