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Jeb the Pony may have left town, but Walter (or is it Walter's successor?) remains in West Seattle.
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A week ago I thought I'd write a long, thoughtful post about this year's independent bookstore day. It would include things like which bookstore had the best selection (Phinney Books) and where I felt overwhelmed by the presence of other people and Just Had To Get Out (Elliott Bay Book Company) and which store felt like it had been seriously affected by a year of Covid (University Bookstore) and where the bookseller and I bonded over wearing similar "VOTE" masks (Ada's). I might also have mentioned the shop where I would have poked longer were it not for the line of people waiting to get in (Third Place Ravenna) and where the bookseller explained Book Store Day to me (Secret Garden) or where I asked for a recommendation (Magnolia's Bookstore) or where it was the bookseller's first experience of Book Store Day (Paper Boat Booksellers) or where I didn't get a receipt, dagnabbit (Arundel Books) or the bookstore where I ordered a couple of books for prisoners online and thus scarcely remember it at all (Queen Anne Book Company). It might have mentioned in passing the couple of standards (Book Larder and Open Books) which we skipped this year because they were, seemingly, closed on Sunday, the day we were in their neighborhood.
But time has passed and I'm a little tired and lacking in enthusiasm for any of it so let me just say that it was handy that Seattle opted to stretch "book store day" into ten days this year. We covered our ten bookstores in four days staggered over about nine days, starting with the online purchase on the first Saturday when I just didn't feel like leaving the house, a ride to Magnolia on Thursday, to Capitol Hill on Saturday, and around North Seattle on Sunday. Many a bookstore is conveniently located near a bakery so in addition to contributing to the bottom lines of ten local bookstores, we made purchases at at least six* local bakeries. I'm thinking we should go rogue and do a bakery store day / weekend / week because god knows that's a shot I have.
Most photos are courtesy of Mr Bailey who, now that I have a phone of my own that can take photos, seems more motivated to take photos of the bikes unbidden. And, because I'm lazy, I'm just stacking up the photos here, in no particular order:
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Bikes loitering outside of Ada's Technical Books
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One of my absolute favorite stops: Coyle's Bakeshop where I had a purchased latte in a real cup for the first time in more than a year. (The cake was quite fine too.)
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The final haul of books: for the first time ever, we purchased the same number of books (aka, about twenty apiece . . . plus a pricy magazine, a number of cards, some pens, a pin, and a number of chocolate bars).
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Bessie's basket hogs the lens outside of Phinney Books.
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Balancing things out, Bernardo's bell takes center stage outside of Secret Garden.
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*Bakeries visited:
Petit Pierre Bakery (Magnolia)
Sugar Bakery (First Hill)
Sod House Bakery (Ravenna)
Seattle Bagel Oasis (Ravenna)
Coyle's Bakeshop (Phinney)
Rosellini's (Ballard)
Can you perhaps elaborate a little on the University Bookstore? I remember my visit aeons ago in 2019 well before the pandemic, and was shocked to see they had moved all the fiction out of the 2nd floor and crammed it into the main floor. A staff person told me it was because they wanted a bigger event space on the 2nd floor, which I suspected was a managerial directed lie for "not doing that well in sales." It made me quite sad.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite the haul, and quite the mileage -- congrats! Nice work on the bakeries, too. I'm impressed -- and I do like your idea about "going rogue". Go for it!
I suppose that UBS relies more on its textbook sales than I might have realized and more of those must be ebooks these days so maybe it's not Covid at all making trouble for them--though really the whole UDistrict seemed a bit bleaker than any other neighborhood we visited which, again, makes sense after a year without students or staff. Then again, most restaurants were still open/unchanged. There are, of course, no proper bakeries in the UDistrict.
DeleteBut UBS: ALL the trade books are on the main floor now. Upstairs had textbooks, textbook buy-back, and the vastly reduced art department. That section was particularly sad. Scott visited the non-book side of the store; he said half the lights were off on that side, but that it seemed to have all the usual Husky clothing, etc. (The store *had* just opened for the day so possibly they were still looking for the light switches.)
Thanks for the update. I'm saddened at the art supplies reduction. Used to find a lot of good stuff there. Sigh. Luckily we do have a good art store here. Oh well. So it goes....
ReplyDeleteYes, the art department made me sad. It used to be such an amazing place.
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