Elliot Bay Book Company/Seattle, WA

A Tour of Independent Bookstores by Sue Roupp

Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle, WA
101 South Main St., Seattle, WA 98104
206-624-6600
http://www.elliottbaybook.com/

Not far from the Seattle Puget Sound ferry landing in Pioneer Square is a bookstore begun in 1973 by Walter Kerr. Elliot Bay has been under new ownership since 1999 and managing owner Peter Aaron is revitalizing the store while staying true to a love of the written word.

Pioneer Square is the oldest part of Seattle and was rebuilt on the roofs of many old buildings after a fire burned down much of Seattle in 1889. Brick and stone buildings (considered fireproof) replaced timber buildings and this helped the area survive the 2001 Seattle earthquake. The 20 city block area houses about 30 galleries and many coffee shops and restaurants yet now and then you look down and see circles of old glass embedded in the sidewalk and know you are walking on history’s roof.

There on the corner of Main and 1st Street is the Elliot Bay Bookstore. Large storefront windows framed in cedar have a small neon sign hanging in them that says “Read” reminding us that visiting with an author through the written word is as important as it ever has been. Under the sign and on a shelf behind the window are books at all levels of interest beckoning the reader and the curious. Inside the book shelves are made of cedar and the worn wooden floors let you know they have supported reader’s footsteps throughout the store’s many levels for 21 years.

Accomplished authors on book tours often ask that Elliot Bay Bookstore be the first stop on their book tour remembering the warm welcome they were given by the staff for their first book discussion. In this age of no brand loyalty holding a bookstore in that kind of esteem is saying something. Elliot Bay author series has held about 3,000 afternoons and evenings of poetry, fiction and non-fiction readings in many languages over the years.

Tracy Taylor the manager of the bookstore has been there 12 years and for her this is exactly where she wants to be because books – and this bookstore in particular – are her passion. “You don’t make a lot of money” she said “but the rewards of selecting, selling and reading books from all kinds of authors is a reward you really can’t buy”.

They have a huge selection of fiction and non-fiction books, kids books, magazines and anything else you can imagine. There is a used book section and down wide winding wooden stairs is a huge coffee house (after all this is Seattle) next to an enormous room with wooden chairs facing a podium where author talks are given hosting anywhere between 2-200 people.

There are book clubs and pot luck poetry clubs and Uncommon Kids & Others kids book reviews but always there is a feeling of being part of history in Pioneer Square and of being among a sensitive dedicated and caring staff who actually read the books they sell while supporting the authors who write them.