Perched on the edge of Vancouver’s West Point Grey neighbourhood sits White Dwarf Books, a favourite haunt of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fans. White Dwarf, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, was founded by husband-and-wife team Walter Sinclair, originally from Portland, Oregon, and Jill Sanagan, a native Vancouverite. Both are lifelong science-fiction and fantasy readers who met in the ’70s while working at various Vancouver bookstores. Two years later, they opened White Dwarf.

“We had wanted to start our own store because of our long interest in and strong knowledge of science fiction and fantasy, and because Vancouver did not already have a specialty store in the field, it seemed the perfect fit,” says Sinclair. “We didn’t have a lot of capital when we opened, and so kept working in other bookstores for a number of years until the business became better established.”

In 1990, White Dwarf expanded to a second store next door, Dead Write Books. The two shops amalgamated in 2012. “We had noticed that there was a definite upswing in the attention the crime/mystery genre was getting from readers and publishers,” Sinclair says. “Our sales for science fiction and fantasy still outweigh those of mystery and crime, and the space we devote to each reflects that to some extent.”

White Dwarf has suffered from the economic impact of big-box stores and Amazon, but Sinclair is confident about the unique role their shop serves. “We think that there needs to be at least some booksellers like us around to represent the reality that they attempt to impersonate,” he says. “If authenticity and commitment can find a way to survive, I’m sure there will always be people who respond. It doesn’t need to be everyone, just the few who recognize that algorithms are fair-weather friends at best.”

Over the years, Sinclair has observed shifts in genre popularity. When White Dwarf opened, customer demand for science fiction was much higher than for fantasy, but he says that trend has now reversed. “The lines between the two have blurred and literary merit has increased in general,” he says. “We’ve seen huge increases in the number of women readers. Another change is how much of the field has become dominated by franchises [such as Star Wars and Star Trek].” Sanagan has noticed a return to high fantasy after a recent frenzy for “zombie romances.”

In 2002, Sinclair and Sanagan moved to their current location at Tenth and Alma. Their customers came to the rescue, helping them pack up the store. Sinclair says he’ll never forget the sight of a line of 10-by-4-foot bookshelves being held aloft and carried down the six long blocks of the 10th Avenue hill from the old location to the new one.

“We’re grateful for our customers’ loyalty over the decades. We’ve had some who came in almost every day, for decades on end, sometimes to browse for a book, sometimes just to chat,” says Sinclair. “Some came in every day as teenagers and then disappeared, only to reappear years later with teenaged children of their own to whom they want to introduce the store. We have attended our customers’ weddings, their funerals, helped them look for homes, look for jobs, move house.

“We’ve had 63-hour work weeks pretty much from the day we opened. We knew from the outset that there’s no pile of riches at the end of the rainbow for booksellers. Becoming a bookseller isn’t something you do to become wealthy, but because you like books and people who read.”