On Saturday, April 28, 2018, people celebrated Independent Bookstore Day around the country. The Pacific Northwest was chock-full of bookish delight! We love this recap of Independent Bookstore Day/ Seattle Bookstore Day from adventurers/bloggers Emily and Aaron of Two Dusty Travelers: “twodustytravelers 12 hours. 2 ferries. 123 miles. 19 independent bookstores. 2 @seabookstoreday Grand Champions!! 🎉🏆 We bought …
From all of us to all of you, may you have a lovely Christmas! Whatever your celebrations, we hope you have a delightful day, and we hope you get a chance to sit down with a great book. Enjoy these scenes of the season.
“There is more time than there is expanse of the world and so any voyage at last will end.” –Ivan Doig, This House of Sky Ivan Doig, beloved author, passed away April 9, 2015. His loss is felt deeply throughout the literary community and beyond. We collect some memories here. Our thoughts and condolences go …
Everybody does it. I look at the books around me every day in the bookstore and I imagine the books I don’t see; the books I’m unlikely to ever see published, or even written. It isn’t a symptom of dissatisfaction with the books there are. Every day I get to work in the bookstore I …
The Holidays can make the strangest of bedfellows, no? And here I don’t mean that awkward combination of cousins in Grandma’s guest room, but rather gifts, givers, and books. One of the deep mysteries of working the retail Season, as it were, has always been the unlikely and unpredictable popularity of this or that title …
Ah, well. So long as there are bookstores, there will be these little difficulties, won’t there? Nothing to be done about it. Even were our problems “as many as my hairs”, I would still count myself lucky to have a job in books, even when that job requires the little patience needed to answer the …
I’m in a rather Biblical state of mind. Not usual for me—but then having grown up in the fly-over, I suppose it was inescapable that now and again my point of reference should be Old Testament. Signs and wonders and all that, signs and wonders. The difficulty is avoiding the prophetic voice. In the first …
You know how it’s okay to make fat jokes if—and only if—one is fat? Well, I’m fat. I also sport a relatively long white beard. Santa Claus references will happen. I get that. One gets you a pass. Two, I start to get a little testy. Three and I’m going to use the wart on …
We’re always going on about the unique virtues and contributions of Independent Bookstores: how socially responsible we are, how community-based we are, how committed to books and literacy, tradition and innovation and on and on. True, if we weren’t around anymore—perish the thought—our customers would be without a major cultural resource, without a convivial, if …
If I had to say what I do for a living, I’d say I buy and sell books–though it’s calendars mostly at the moment. Anyway, I’m proud to have the word “bookseller” after my name on various forms and documents. Mine’s an honorable occupation, and I’m part of a long and largely respectable tradition. It’s …
