Seattle Independent Bookstore Day, Episode 1

 

Final 2024 Passport

 In its infinite wisdom, the power behind Seattle Independent Bookstore Day opted to expand the number of bookstores to 28 (more than that, really, if you consider the couple of stores with multiple outlets) and ten days. I'm not sure what they're playing at, really, with this sort of nonsense. I'm a huge fan of books and bookstores, but even I reached the point where looking at a shelf of freshly published fiction made me want to vomit. Oh, it was a fine thing to discover unexpected treasures and to learn of new shops, but I didn't fill my card despite going out on (pause to count) five different days, and my heart wasn't truly broken to end up with but 21 stamps on my card. (Though, some full disclosure: when, counting up the stamps on the card, I reached only 18 I was a little crestfallen, but then I realized I was counting Scott's card. With his fulltime job and all, he missed a few shops.)

And it's taken a good chunk of time just to sort through the photos we took so I've decided to write this scintillating (I hope) account in a number of installments. Whether I'll actually write it all up is really anyone's guess. But here goes:

Roughly planned route: there were some changes along the way

I did some loose mapping a day or two in advance of the first Saturday--the official Independent Bookstore Day nationwide, I believe--with the goal of hitting 15 stores on that day. We managed it, too, despite--or possibly because--the low bridge was closed to bike traffic; that shaved quite a few miles off the total we biked. Another change from previous years: I vowed to buy but one book per store. Our first stop was our local, Paper Boat Booksellers, where I never have trouble finding many somethings I want to buy and where Scott won a $5 gift card. They had this fine display for photographing one's purchases:

Mmmm . . . free cookies as well as great books!

We rode a couple of blocks and then put our bikes onto a C to get us downtown in comfort. Have I mentioned yet that it was a cool and frequently wet day? What I call "ideal hypothermia conditions," but fortunately our rain jackets held up and cycling kept us warm. Mostly.

Our second stop was Arundel Books in Pioneer Square. I've said it before and I'll say it again: they have a nice mix of new and used. Because the first book I selected there (an old Elspeth Huxley mystery) was so cheap, I broke my rule and selected a second book there as well (Thackeray and Dickens fairy tales). Had I it to do over again, I'd probably have stuck to my rule, but possibly breaking it early on took the pressure off. Besides, when am I likely to see either of these beauties for sale again?

Purchases at Arundel

 After Arundel we faced a quandary. Open Books is only a few blocks from Arundel, but it didn't open until noon and and we had some time constraints: two shops on Capitol Hill (Capital Hill? Capitol Hill? I've seen and used both) closed at 8:00 p.m. Sensibly, we opted to take the opportunity to grab a cup of coffee and pastry at Cafe Umbria. It wasn't really warm enough to sit outside so we got ourselves some seats at the window counter from which I could keep an eye on the bikes. It was Scott's bike's first bookstore day outing and you never know what hijinks first-timers might get up to if not watched.

Lovely coffees and so-so pastry at Cafe Umbria

And then it was off to Open Books, the tale of which shall be told in the next installment.