Kicking off election week, I decided to post another bookstore review from the turn of the century. I am proud to have helped procure some funds from the Grateful Dead's Rex Foundation for Books to Prisoners - I've got the t-shirt to prove it.
Inventory: Radical politics, anti-authoritarian, independent, left-wing, small press
Left Bank Books is probably best described by their own hand-out sheet.
Read more about On the Other Left Bank>Gary’s Games & Hobbies
8539 Greenwood Ave. N.
Seattle, WA 98103
Inventory: Games, models, puzzles, books
Something else we do in Seattle on rainy days. Read more about Games? You wanna play games?
I came of age in the Eisenhower/Kennedy era, when the future, even threatened by a nuclear shadow, was also bright with possibility and, with Kennedy's promise to take us to the Moon, alive with adventure.
Into the 60's and 70's, I remained convinced better days were ahead. Star Trek promised us a future without racism, a future that fused science and nature in harmonic symbiosis, a future in which not only different peoples of the earth but also aliens worked together for the good of all. Read more about The Danger of Dystopia
Fremont - self-styled Center of the Universe - somehow lost this gem:
Fremont Place Book Co. Read more about A Hole in the Center of the Universe
The Couth Buzzard seems to have come up with a device that ensures its survival - combine with a very cool coffee shop and bring in live music once in a while. My friend Jim Page is a strong supporter. Read more about The Couth Buzzard
Boardwalk Empire, Hell on Wheels, and Copper are three great excursions into times we never knew and sometimes think we might prefer. I watch them all. But for the real thing, I read old National Geographics. These writers weren't looking for period authenticity. They lived them. Read more about Finding the Rainbow
I was afraid this would happen. Today's bookstore is less of a field guide and more of a history.
Inventory: Alternative and small press comics, self-published comics, books on the bizarre & novelties
An unprepossessing name for a prepossessing bookstore:
B. Brown & Associates
3534 Stone Way N.
Seattle, WA 98103
Inventory: Fine used and rare books, science fiction, horror, mystery
B. Brown and Associates sits in the middle of a shady row of three great bookstores on the south end of Stone Way, between SeaOcean Book Berth and The Seattle Book Center. Read more about B. Brown
As far as I can determine, Ballard Books is still where I said it was more than 10 years ago. This is how it looked to me then.
Ballard Books
2221 N.W. 56th
Seattle, WA 98107
206-782-0820
Inventory: Used and rare books
Hours: Mon-Sat: 10-8
Sun: 12-6 Read more about Ballard Books
A few years ago, when was only five chapters long and sitting in an old dusty file somewhere in the house, I was thinking about other, quicker ways to somehow get off the ground writing.
There's no link to A Field Guide to Bookstores. I didn't finish it. Life reared its ugly head once again. But before it did so, I had managed to visit at least three quarters of the bookstores that were in Seattle in the late '90's. I even wrote an introduction: