Toronto Reference Library Blog

Did you know that you can borrow current books, movies, music, and magazines from the Toronto Reference Library? 

The Browsery is a collection of new, popular, and award-winning adult fiction and non-fiction items that are free to borrow. Everything is available on a first-come, first-served basis; no holds allowed. Which means that if you come at the right time you just might find highly sought-after items on our shelves that you won't find in most branches. Plus, because there are no holds, you can usually renew your items twice!

You can find the Browsery on the main floor of the Toronto Reference Library, on your left as you enter, between the Information Desk and the Adaptive Tech Centre.

Wondering what kinds of things are in the Browsery? Here is a look at what I found on a recent visit.

As I write this, John Grisham's latest legal thriller Gray Mountain, has almost 900 holds (!) but here is a non-holdable copy in the Browsery just waiting for someone to come and snatch it up. Or this, a new mystery by Maureen Jennings, No Known Grave, from the author who inspired the television series Murdoch Mysteries.

This new reissue of Haruki Murakami's 2008 novella The Strange Library was designed by the legendary book designer Chip Kidd and it is an absolute beauty. To open it, you lift up/pull down the covers, as you can see in the photo on the right. You can also see, just behind it, Shani Mootoo's Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, which was on the 2014 Scotiabank Giller longlist (and has one of my favourite book titles of all time). And there's a copy of Jane Smiley's brand new novel Some Luck, the first volume in a projected trilogy that will span the last hundred years in American history, from 1920 to 2019.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a charming little book, featured in John Elmslie's 20 Fabulous Books Under $20 blog post, and perfect for that post-holiday de-cluttering and organizing blitz that I'm sure to get to any minute now. And here is a copy of bestselling Hollywood chronicler William Mann's Tinseltown, which delves into the notorious unsolved 1922 murder of William Desmond Taylor, president of the Motion Picture Directors Association.

The Browsery has a small graphic fiction and non-fiction section. I am a big fan of Jeff Lemire's comics, and here are the three latest volumes in his emotionally-charged, post-apocalyptic Sweet Tooth series, which has been described as Bambi meets The Road.

The Browsery continues, past the Global Connect TV Wall and the Holds, into the reading room.

Thinking of heading south for winter? Here are travel books to help plan your trip.

Or, if you are more of an armchair traveller, you can'tour North America with iconic musician Neil Young in his new memoir Special Deluxe, or take a culinary journey through Quebec in the cookbook Made in Quebec.

In audiobooks, here is a copy of Heartburn by the late, great Nora Ephron, narrated by Meryl Streep (!), who also starred in the movie adaptation. Or, for something completely different, how about all three of the Fifty Shades books on audio? That'll liven up my morning commute!

I'm sorry to say you actually won't find the latest Prince release, Art Official Age, in the Browsery's music CD section today because I had to borrow it for myself. But I promise to return it soon.

There are also lots of DVDs: feature movies; television shows; documentaries; how-to videos; and more.

The Browsery also has popular magazines, as well as a small collection of large print books, plus talking books for use by print disabled patrons.

You may be interested to know that North York Central Library also has a Browsery collection; you can read about it in this blog post by Kelli. 

And so concludes this tour of the Browsery at Toronto Reference Library. Next time you are in the area why not drop in and take a look around for yourself? You never know what you might find.