# Seattle | Places to Wander Canonical: https://artist.fyi/places/seattle/ Publisher: The Corporate Artist (artist.fyi) Issue: Places to Wander, Issue 001. Published 2026-09-13. Four independent bookstores worth finding in person. If you're looking for the best independent bookstores in Seattle, Places to Wander's edited guide includes Elliott Bay Book Company in Capitol Hill, Queen Anne Book Company in Queen Anne and Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Pioneer Square. Explore the selected shops below, with neighborhood context, drawings and links to each shop's own website. The guide is edited, not numerically ranked. ## Selected bookstores ### Elliott Bay Book Company Opened on 29 June 1973 by Walter Carr and moved in 2010 into a Ford truck service building from around 1918, with timber trusses, nineteen-foot ceilings and cedar shelving beneath them. Some 150,000 titles and more than five hundred events a year. - Neighborhood: Capitol Hill - Specialty: Literature · Ideas · Author events - Address: 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122 - Official site: https://www.elliottbaybook.com/ - Entry: https://artist.fyi/places/seattle/#elliott - Illustration: https://artist.fyi/places/assets/elliott-bay-seattle__people-correction__2026-09-13__v37.webp - Founded: 1973 Look up at the timber beams, then down at the display tables. Elliott Bay gives books a generous room on Capitol Hill. The shelves range widely; the events give writers a chance to speak for themselves. Begin with a subject you know almost nothing about. Look up at the timber, then down at the tables. Begin with a subject you know almost nothing about. ### Queen Anne Book Company Opened on 1 March 2013 in the centre of Queen Anne, on the site of a bookshop that had been there since the late 1980s. Orders placed on the website are handled by a bookseller, not a system, and in its thirteenth year KUOW called it a local literary beacon. - Neighborhood: Queen Anne - Specialty: Fiction · Cookbooks · Children’s books - Address: 1811 Queen Anne Avenue N, Seattle, WA 98109 - Official site: https://qabookco.com/ - Entry: https://artist.fyi/places/seattle/#queen-anne - Illustration: https://artist.fyi/places/assets/queen-anne-seattle-the-corporate-artist__marker__2026-09-12__v13.webp - Founded: 2013 The planters and front windows make a persuasive invitation. Queen Anne Book Company works at neighborhood scale: books, recommendations and reasons to return. Ask for something beyond your usual shelf. That is a useful sort of local knowledge. Local knowledge is a person. Ask for something beyond your usual. ### Twice Sold Tales Jamie Lutton’s used bookshop since 1987, in what was once a doctor’s surgery, home to six resident cats: Lily, Buster, Screamer, Myrtle, Pepperjack and James. - Neighborhood: Capitol Hill - Type: Used and rare - Specialty: Used books · Rare finds · Cats - Address: 1833 Harvard Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122 - Official site: https://www.twicesoldtales.com/ - Entry: https://artist.fyi/places/seattle/#twice-sold - Illustration: https://artist.fyi/places/assets/twice-sold-seattle-the-corporate-artist__marker__2026-09-12__v13.webp - Founded: 1987 A cat above an open book: the sign knows its audience Twice Sold Tales pairs used and rare titles with resident cats The books have been somewhere before you The books have been somewhere before you. So have the cats. ### Open Books: A Poem Emporium A shop that sells poetry and nothing else, more than ten thousand titles, with a room called The Parlor and Poet Office Hours, when a poet keeps a chair there for anyone who wants to talk. - Neighborhood: Pioneer Square - Type: Rare and out-of-print - Specialty: Poetry · Chapbooks · Translation - Address: 108 Cherry Street, Seattle, WA 98104 - Official site: https://openpoetrybooks.com/ - Entry: https://artist.fyi/places/seattle/#open-books - Illustration: https://artist.fyi/places/assets/open-books-seattle-the-corporate-artist__marker__2026-09-12__v13.webp - The Detour: this issue's editorial detour Give a few lines the time you usually give a whole screen. Open Books devotes its Pioneer Square shop to poetry, from new collections to rare and out-of-print work. A good detour for anyone whose working day is made of words. ## Questions readers ask ### What are some of the best independent bookstores in Seattle? Places to Wander's edited selection includes Elliott Bay Book Company, Queen Anne Book Company, Twice Sold Tales and Open Books: A Poem Emporium. The guide is not numerically ranked. Each entry explains why the shop is included and links to the shop's own website. ### What is The Detour in the Seattle issue? Open Books: A Poem Emporium in Pioneer Square. A shop that sells poetry and nothing else, more than ten thousand titles, with a room called The Parlor and Poet Office Hours, when a poet keeps a chair there for anyone who wants to talk. The Detour is an editorial designation, not a ranking. ### Does the guide include used or rare bookstores? Yes. Twice Sold Tales (used and rare) and Open Books: A Poem Emporium (rare and out-of-print). Used, antiquarian and rare books are not interchangeable labels; this guide uses each description only where the shop's entry supports it. ### Are there specialist bookstores in Seattle? The guide includes Queen Anne Book Company, which focuses on fiction, cookbooks, children’s books and Open Books: A Poem Emporium, which focuses on poetry, chapbooks, translation. These are selections from the issue, not a complete directory of every specialist shop in the city. ### Is there a map of the featured bookstores? Yes. The Seattle issue includes a map and shop index. Select a shop to open its entry, then use the shop's official link for visiting details. The illustrated map is an orientation aid, not a turn-by-turn route. ## About this guide Places to Wander is an editorial field guide from The Corporate Artist to independent bookstores and bookshops worth finding in person. We look for independent shops with a point of view: exceptional selection, a meaningful specialty, a room worth experiencing, a role in its neighborhood, or the possibility of finding something you did not arrive looking for. The guides are edited, not numerically ranked. A bookstore does not have to stock The Corporate Artist to be included. A field guide from Morgan Sage Norman, author of The Corporate Artist, a book about creativity at work. Method and FAQ: https://artist.fyi/places/about.md · All cities: https://artist.fyi/places/index.md · Reading Room: https://artist.fyi/reading-room