Vancouver loses another indy magazine outlet -- Sophia Books to close end of May

Sophia Books, an outstanding, multilingual magazine and bookstore on West Hastings Street in Vancouver, is closing at the end of May, according to a story posted on the site Books on the Radio. 

It is yet another example of the endangered species that are independent stores which have cared about and nurtured hard-to-find and indy magazines. (The loss will be particularly felt by the students at the nearby downtown campus of Simon Fraser University, home of the Magazine Publishing program.) 

The store carried books and magazines in Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian and German with a staff that could serve customers in English, Japanese, French and Spanish. The store had been importing books from Japan since 1975 and specialized in the ultra-specialized niche of tattoo publishing from Japan and elsewhere.

"It's another heartbreaker for book lovers in Vancouver, " said Sean Cranbury in the post, "as Sophia represented the best and most unique selection of international art, graphic design, comix, fiction, non-fiction, manga and magazines not only in the city, the province - pretty much anywhere."