Seattle Highlights

Sales rep Patricia Nelson shares a few highlights from her visit to Seattle to sell fall titles.

 

Elliott Bay

I spent a long evening browsing the store and getting my bearings here. The metaphor of a great ship is extended in the Elliott Bay logo and in the store blog The Ship’s (B)Log, and the great wood-decked store fairly creaks. It is an old original wooden floor heavy enough to hold trucks—this retrofitted warehouse with great beamed rafters and an arching wood warehouse ceiling was an old truck garage. Even the handtrucks for carting books about are crafted wood—well-scuffed and dinged from hard work.A richly literary sensibility pervades. Staff picks find the new but also rediscover Barthes, Bellow, R Graves, Malcolm X, and Cormac McCarthy.

 

University Bookstore/University of Washington

Another legendary store and only blocks from my hotel. I spent a long evening and several other visits looking through the store. With on-the-street access, private parking, two huge floors, the store is a stand-alone destination; a major Seattle landmark attracting a big off-campus audience. Staff picks are energetic and a lot of space allotted. UB bestsellers and events also add a lot of display keeping the ground floor energetic. Ground floor includes an Espresso Book Machine humming away—and a nice display of recently printed books. I asked if it had a name—‘Homer’—wonderfully, this alludes to Homer Price and the donut machine.

 

Kinokuniya Seattle

Each of the Kinokuniya stores has a quite different layout and character. The Seattle store is adjacent to the huge destination market Umijimaya, This is a Seattle phenomenon, an Asian food market with cookware, take-out, aisles of imported package food and fabulous vegetables. The bookstore actually opens directly into the market on the ground floor.  Kinokuniya has a second floor, which is mostly Japanese language. Umijimaya is a major shopping landmark here—while downtown malls are ignored, Umijimaya gets called out on tourist maps and in guidebooks. The market and bookstore are symbiotic. The manga customer is picking up octopus sushi. Both shopping experiences are exotic for the tourist. Both are browsing experiences for the constant customer, and the whole attracts crowds for both English and Asian language experiences.