A book collector's dream on Bloor West — and home to the world's first Biblio-Mat, a coin-operated vending machine that dispenses a random vintage book for $2. Drop in a toonie, pull the lever, and walk out with something unexpected. The shop itself is a curated cabinet of antiquarian oddities: out-of-print art books, obscure paperbacks, vintage ephemera, and titles you won't find anywhere else.
Neighbourhood: Bloordale Village · Address: 1267 Bloor St W, Toronto, ON M6H 1N7 · Hours: Wed–Sun 11am–6pm (check Instagram for current hours) · Price Range: Free to browse / $2 Biblio-Mat · Website: https://www.monkeyspaw.com/
At The Monkey's Paw, you get the thrill of discovering rare, decades-old books and oddities you literally can't find anywhere else in Toronto. Plus, you can buy a surprise vintage book from their custom-built vending machine for just a toonie.
It's the only shop in the city with the Biblio-Mat, the first-ever vending machine that dispenses an actual random old book. The curated shelves focus entirely on out-of-print, obscure, and unusual finds — not your average used paperback fare. You'll see everything from mid-century how-to guides to bizarre ephemera that regular bookshops never carry.
If you like bookstores with a bit of personality — and by personality, I mean a slightly eccentric, deeply committed obsession with old paper, odd facts, and the thrill of finding something you weren’t looking for — make time for The Monkey’s Paw in Bloordale Village. It’s at 1267 Bloor St W, an easy walk from Dufferin or Lansdowne on Line 2, and it feels like the kind of place Toronto is lucky to still have: small, carefully curated, and completely uninterested in looking or behaving like a chain store. You don’t come here to browse in the generic “I’m killing time before dinner” sense. You come here because you like the idea that a book can be both an object and a little mystery.
The first thing most people come for is the Biblio-Mat, and honestly, it earns the attention. It’s the world’s first coin-operated vending machine for books, and yes, it really works the way you want it to. You drop in a toonie, pull the lever, and after a dramatic clunk, whirr, and thunk, out comes a random vintage book wrapped in paper. There’s no preview, no category selection, no sneaky little hint about whether you’re getting a novel, a reference book, a forgotten memoir, or something so niche you’ll feel personally chosen by the universe. That moment between pulling the lever and the book appearing is the whole point. People grin, laugh, film each other, or stand there with the sort of serious face usually reserved for lottery tickets. It’s fun because it’s genuinely uncertain, and that’s rarer than it should be. Bring a $2 coin if you’re planning to do it; the machine only takes toonies, and nothing is more annoying than arriving prepared to impulse-buy a vintage book and realizing you only have bills or taps.
But The Monkey’s Paw isn’t just a novelty wrapped around a vending machine. The shop itself is the real draw, and it’s the sort of place that rewards slowing down. The shelves are packed with antiquarian and unusual books, and browsing feels less like shopping and more like wandering through a very disciplined archive of someone’s excellent taste in strange things. You’ll see out-of-print art books, photography books with incredible covers, old paperbacks that look like they’ve lived several lives, small-format oddities, reference books on subjects you didn’t know people once wrote full volumes about, and little stacks of ephemera that make you pause and lean in. Some books are valuable, some are just deeply charming, and some are only valuable because they’re so weird that they become impossible to forget. I’ve seen people pick up one book, open it, and immediately decide they need to spend the next ten minutes reading the introduction because it’s somehow more interesting than whatever they came in for.
What’s especially nice is that the store doesn’t feel crowded with the usual “bookstore lifestyle” clutter. It’s not trying to be a café, a gift shop, an event space, and a social media backdrop all at once. It knows exactly what it is. That’s part of why it stands out. A lot of bookstores now lean hard into giftable generalism — candles, tote bags, the same broad selection of recent bestsellers. The Monkey’s Paw goes the other way. It’s specific. It trusts that the people who come here want to dig. And if you do like digging, there’s a real pleasure in scanning the shelves and finding something that feels almost too specific to exist. Maybe it’s a photography book from the 1970s with a cover that somehow looks cooler now than it did then. Maybe it’s a strange educational booklet. Maybe it’s a thin paperback with a title that makes no sense until you open it and discover it’s exactly your kind of nonsense.
The neighbourhood adds to the appeal. Bloordale Village still feels more lived-in than polished, which is part of why the store works so well there. You can get there easily by transit, and once you’re on Bloor West, the whole strip has that practical Toronto mix of everyday businesses, small restaurants, bars, and independent shops that don’t seem to care whether they’re photographed. It’s not an area that demands you build an itinerary around it, but it does reward wandering. If you’ve got time, grab coffee nearby first, then come to the shop when you’re already in the mood to linger. The street itself can feel a little different depending on the hour: quieter and more contemplative earlier in the day, busier and more stop-and-start later on when people are popping in before dinner, heading to the subway, or making a detour after work. The Monkey’s Paw fits that rhythm perfectly. It doesn’t scream for attention from the sidewalk, but once you’re inside, the outside world drops away fast.
It’s also a great place if you’re shopping for someone else and want to avoid giving them the kind of gift they could have bought themselves in a mall. People come here for unusual presents all the time: design-minded friends, old-book collectors, Toronto obsessives, people who love a specific era of illustration, or that one friend who always says they want “something weird, but good.” Even if you don’t leave with a big stack, you may leave with one thing that feels weirdly perfect. And if you’re traveling solo, this is exactly the sort of stop that makes being on your own feel like a treat rather than a compromise. You can drift, read a few back covers, mutter “what is this?” under your breath, and take your time without feeling like anyone expects you to hurry.
There’s a practical side to planning the visit, too. Weekday afternoons are usually the calmest, which makes browsing easier if you want to actually look at the shelves instead of gently circling around other people. Saturdays can be lively, especially if a few groups show up for the Biblio-Mat all at once. The machine itself can create a tiny bottleneck because people naturally want to watch the result, and honestly, that part is half the fun. If there’s a line, it usually moves fast, but the atmosphere shifts when several people are waiting their turn: everyone gets a little more invested, and strangers become temporary co-conspirators in the same book gamble. If you hate standing around while other people decide whether they want a mystery paperback, go earlier in the day. If you enjoy the social aspect of it, later can be entertaining.
The honest reality is that this place works best when you treat it like a stop, not a mission. You’re not coming to power through a checklist of inventory. You’re coming to browse, get sidetracked, maybe buy something you didn’t plan to buy, and absolutely do the Biblio-Mat at least once. Stock rotates constantly, which is why repeat visits make sense. You won’t have the same experience twice, and that’s not marketing talk — it’s just how a place like this functions. One visit might leave you with nothing but a good story and a photo of the machine. The next visit might hand you the exact obscure book you didn’t know you’d been looking for. And yes, that randomness can be frustrating if you’re the type who wants certainty, but it’s also why the shop feels alive.
If you’re making the trip, check the hours before you go, since they can shift and the store is only open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. I’d still look at Instagram on the day, especially if you’re planning to come from across town or want to combine the visit with other things on Bloor. Bring cash, or at least a toonie for the machine, because that’s the one detail people forget most often. The store itself is free to browse, which makes it an easy, low-pressure stop even if you’re not sure you’re in a buying mood. But in my experience, the whole point is that you usually end up in a buying mood once you’re there. The Monkey’s Paw has that effect. It gets under your skin a little, in the nicest possible way, and sends you back out onto Bloor with a book in your bag and the distinct feeling that you’ve just participated in one of Toronto’s more charming little rituals.
The Biblio-Mat is the world's first coin-operated book vending machine, invented by artist Craig Small and installed at The Monkey's Paw in Toronto. You insert a $2 coin (toonie), pull the lever, and receive a randomly selected vintage book. The machine dispenses surprising, sometimes strange, always interesting titles from the shop's rotating stock of used and antiquarian books.
The Monkey's Paw is at 1267 Bloor St W in Bloordale Village, Toronto. The nearest subway stations are Dufferin and Lansdowne on Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth), each about a 5-minute walk. The shop is open Wednesday through Sunday; check their Instagram for current hours before visiting.
The Monkey's Paw specializes in antiquarian, out-of-print, and vintage books — particularly art books, photography books, obscure paperbacks, and unusual ephemera. Owner Stephen Fowler curates the collection with an eye for the rare and eccentric. You won't find bestsellers here; you'll find books you didn't know you needed.
Yes — the Biblio-Mat alone is worth the trip. Even if you don't consider yourself a book collector, putting $2 into the machine and receiving a random vintage book is a genuinely fun Toronto experience. The shop is also simply beautiful to browse: well-lit, thoughtfully arranged, and full of the kind of serendipitous finds that make independent bookshops irreplaceable.
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