Glad Day Bookshop

About this place Glad Day Bookshop

Glad Day Bookshop has been operating on Church Street since 1970, making it the oldest LGBTQ+ bookstore in the world — a distinction that carries genuine weight in the history of queer culture. The original store served a community that had almost no other access to queer literature, erotica, political writing, and community information; in the pre-internet era, bookshops like Glad Day were essential infrastructure for LGBTQ+ life. The current incarnation of Glad Day has expanded far beyond its original format: the ground floor now houses a café and bar alongside the bookshop itself, with an events programme that brings writers, performers, drag queens, and activists through the space on a regular basis. The stock remains comprehensive across the full range of LGBTQ+ publishing — fiction, theory, history, erotica, comics, zines, and community publications — and the curation reflects genuine expertise rather than token inclusion. The café and bar format means that Glad Day is a destination for a morning coffee, an afternoon browse, or an evening event; it functions as a community living room in a way that pure retail cannot achieve. For any visitor to Toronto with an interest in queer culture, Glad Day is mandatory.