Now gone since 2017, Greenfield Books was a charming bookstore in an old house on 217 Academy Rd. It was easy to miss unless you had the address with a somewhat subtle sign beckoning a passerby to a side door up some stairs. When I first went there, I wasn’t sure if I was at the right place.
Michael Park, the intense owner, would greet you when you came in. There was an impressive living room with French doors and hardwood floors which had more serious tomes on big bookshelves and other niches on the first floor crammed with inviting, interesting books. I remember he had a signed Neil Young (and Randy Bachman?) alongside the stairs where you first came in.
One could not help but be impressed by what Michael had done with converting his basement into bookshelves–very clean with a carpet you could kneel on as you looked at poetry or authors’ biography. I bought a fair bit there in my trips after 2000 to present at MB’s teacher conferences. It was always like entering a private domain where books were considered sacred.
In my last trip there around 2010, Michael had greatly changed physically, having lost his hair to alopecia totalis. Although he looked very different, he was still Michael with his great passion for books and book talk. Sadly he passed in 2017 and the Greenfield stock ended up at Bison Books–his other bookstore downtown–run by a former apprentice who later took over complete ownership, and finally, Michael’s treasured Greenfield stock.
Michael had a remarkable life and once owned Edmonton Bookstore before Barbara Ellis took it over. He was a lawyer, a dj, a newspaper editor, and had lived several previous busy lives you can read about online. He has been greatly missed and left his indelible, passionate marks on both the Winnipeg and Edmonton book scenes.