Seattle

Four independent bookstores worth finding in person.

PLACES TO WANDER · ISSUE 001

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.

Seattle · The bookshop mapChoose a number

Open drawing & shop details

Map: Esri, TomTom, Garmin, FAO, NOAA, USGS, © OpenStreetMap contributors and GIS User Community. Selected streets and water; numbered points use the existing address matches. Use directions for your visit.

The illustrated issue

Browse the drawings. Open a shop for visiting details.

01 · Capitol Hill

Elliott Bay Book Company

Literature · Ideas · Author events

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.

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.

1521 10th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122

02 · Queen Anne

Queen Anne Book Company

Fiction · Cookbooks · Children’s books

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.

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.

1811 Queen Anne Avenue N, Seattle, WA 98109

03 · Capitol Hill

Twice Sold Tales

Used books · Rare finds · Cats

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.

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.

1833 Harvard Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122

Follow a different
train of thought.

Choose a book outside your work. Notice how it makes its case. Bring one useful question back with you.

04 · Pioneer Square · THE DETOUR

Open Books: A Poem Emporium

Poetry · Chapbooks · Translation

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.

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.

108 Cherry Street, Seattle, WA 98104

Questions about Seattle’s bookstores

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.

The Corporate Artist: The Art of Working Beautifully by Morgan Sage Norman

Bring your creative self
back to work.

The Corporate Artist: The Art of Working Beautifully is Morgan Sage Norman’s book about bringing your creative self to everyday work. It explores how the roles we play, the conversations we have and the decisions we make can become creative practice.

Find your copy ↗

The book on Bookshop.org ↗

Have the book with you?

Try Every Role Has a Medium (Your Craft) for a different way to look at what you do.

Or turn to Nothing Is Wasted and Rightsizing Importance. Begin with the title that catches you.

Looking for books about creativity at work? Visit the Reading Room.

Keep wandering.

Another city. Another way to look.