NEWS
BY SUE CARTER
WHILE SPEAKING to a group of business leaders, policymakers, and analysts at The Economist’s Canada Summit last June, Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn suggested that, as Canadians, “we are comfortable with the idea that books are more than just things to be sold, more than just units or content.” He referred to books as “the container of a country’s dreaming, its stories and arguments and history, its most dangerous suggestions and serious thought. Books live at the intersection of culture and commerce, with businesses, policymakers, and consumers all crossing paths, a source of pride, heritage, and identity with which we as Canadians are entirely familiar.”