I picked up this book (at New York’s McNally Jackson bookstore) because it didn’t look like anything else on the shelf, and inside it doesn’t read like anything else either. Mostly, it’s a biography of the Seattle-born architect Minoru Yamasaki, known to us as the designer of what is now the Pacific Science Center but …
University Book Store is celebrating its 120th anniversary this week on Friday Jan. 10. That day kicks off a year’s worth of events linked to the store’s founding. In 1895, when Washington had only officially been a state for six years, the “Territorial University” moved north of Portage Bay and became the University of Washington. …
Readers who remember my interview with natural history writer David B. Williams already know that he’s at the very top of the list when it comes to covering our region’s past. His study of the myriad modifications our ancestors have made to the local landscape, Too High and Too Steep, was an Island Books Top …
The boatbuilding family in Jim Lynch’s latest novel, Before the Wind, is imperfect and unpredictable, sometimes working together seamlessly, other times colliding and combustible, mystified by their differences. Josh, the protagonist and middle child, is the last to leave the crumbling family home, while his siblings range around the world and his parents continue in …
I was helping move some shelves in the sports section not long ago when a little piece of history fluttered out from a crevice. In case it’s not clear from the photo, that’s a 56-year-old box seat ticket that let some lucky fan watch the Portland Beavers play in what was then known as Multnomah …
You’re probably familiar with this famous image of the historic Northwest. It depicts the last elevated redoubts of Denny Hill, which overlooked Seattle’s downtown business core until it was flattened in the name of progress in the early 20th century. I’ve always thought there was something noble about these holdout property owners, Edith Macefields avant …
