Eighteen years ago I visited Seattle for the first time.  It was our first weekend trip away from a job I hated and a city I swore I would never live in (now I realize I’ll live in Los Angeles for the rest of my life, but I did get rid of that job).  The angst I felt over all the changes in my life lifted the moment I walked into The Elliott Bay Book Company.  I found a book during that first visit about living in suburbia; the recommendation card described the tedium of living in tract housing as the constant evenly paced whoosh of a Rainbird sprinkler.  The description struck me, so I bought the book.  It detailed the brain-numbing monotony of suburban life.  Whenever I drive through tract housing I feel that oppression.

Interestingly enough, during my recent trip to Elliot Bay, I bought two more books about home life (really, they have over 150,000 titles, the breadth and depth of the store is amazing, I just seem to have a theme whenever I go there).  When I walked into the store I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the choices.  In front of me as soon as I entered where four 9 foot or taller bookshelves full of staff recommendations.  I wanted all of them.  More recommendations were spread among the various subjects.  An entire bookshelf is dedicated to recommendations for books groups (plus book groups can meet with a staff member to discuss recommendations for their group and tips on how to keep the conversation on topic).  I gave up trying to make a decision and asked the woman at the information desk if there was a unique book she liked.  She had two that she talked about as we walked over to the books (I learned later that employees are trained to walk the customer over to the book they’re asking about chatting with them the entire way, I loved it).  The first was Cost by Roxana Robinson, a story of what all of us give up for family.  I haven’t read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.  Hmm, is this the appropriate book to be reading around the Christmas tree surrounded by family?  Maybe not. 

Book Review

The second book was The Story of Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer, she said the book did a wonderful job showing that spouses never really know each other.  But the author is young, in his thirties, what, has he been married 15 minutes?  Well, I read this book and the young author has some interesting insights on assumptions in marriage and the problems resulting from a lack of communication.   The basic storyline is how Pearlie’s view of her husband from their childhood and their marriage changes when a person from his war years returns and alters their lives.  What drove me nuts is that Pearlie and Holland, the husband, never discuss the issue, they communicate about this vital topic only through this ghost from his past.  For me, the book becomes a bit of a stretch, but I discuss everything with my husband, he actually might like a little bit of Pearlie in his life.  Pearlie wonders about marriage and the role of a wife through the sentencing of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.  Why didn’t Ethel turn on her husband to be with her kids?  To whom does she have the greatest loyalty?  The question of loyalty comes up in the Rosenberg’s marriage, Pealier and Holland’s marriage and the actions of the boys who did not fight in WWII, either as a result of conscientious objection or fear. Interwoven in the story is a picture of life for a black family at the end of the Korean War and a peek into the culture of a nation awakening to its promise after WWII.

The List of Qualities

Elliott Bay has an amazing amount of features that support its nationwide fame, here’s a bullet point list of what is wonderful:

• A coffee shop serving organic food and coffee that inhabits the entire basement.  Rumor has it that the coffee shop in “Frazier” is based on this one.
• Book clubs every Tuesday night at 6:30:  The Elliot Bay Book Club discussing contemporary fiction on the first Tuesday; The Global Issues and Ethics Book Club discussing modern problems and maybe even solutions on the second Tuesday; Speculation, the SciFi and Fantasy group on the third Tuesday; and, Stages, for readers of new and classic dramas on the fourth Tuesday.  The books for each group on the website, a handy recommendation guide if you love the genre but don’t live close enough to attend.
• Maiden Voyage First Edition Program – the store sends out a hardback first edition of an author’s debut novel.  One past choice was The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize.  Membership is $150 a year.  Hmm, another holiday or birthday gift that would keep on giving all year long.
• Elliott Bay gives back to the Seattle community with Books for Change.  A percentage of sales from chosen books are donated to charity.  When I was there the choice of books related to the organization for that month, but also included several fiction and non-fiction bestsellers such as Master Pip by Lloyd Jones.
• The staff will assist with corporate sales, either arranging for the appropriate book for an entire office or client list or a variety of hand picked books for a particular business.
• Almost nightly author visits from the entire range of authors from the stature of Frank Rich and John Irving to the new unknown author who could be tomorrow’s Phillip Roth.  In fact, right now the opening page for the website is a recollection of the Obama’s visit when he toured the nation for The Audacity of Hope.
• Staged Play Readings occur from May to October (the less rainy months?), each month is a staged reading of a play.
• Last but certainly not least, each quarter Elliot Bay publishes Elliot Bay Booknotes a summary of recommended books of various genres.  Bookmark this page and remember to return to it on each Equinox and Solstice.

A Closing Gift

The entire time I was reading The Story of Marriage, I kept thinking of a poem I heard Mary Oliver read last winter.  I was in Royce Hall with hundreds of other people and you could have heard a pin drop, we all sat mesmerized by the poetry of this tiny woman.  After almost 20 years of marriage, I think this one is the most beautiful love poems:

The Whistler

All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden

I mean that for more than thirty years she had not

whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was

in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and

she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and

cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war-

bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.

Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she

said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can

still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled

through the house, whistling.

I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an-

kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too.

And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin

to know each other? Who is this I’ve been living with

for thirty years?

This clear, dark, lovely whistler?

Thank you, Mary Oliver.

Elliott Bay Book Company
101 South Main Street
Seattle, WA 98104
T: 206.624.6600

I wondered as I visited Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz how a city of 55,000 supported two independent bookstores within four blocks of each other with a Borders plopped in between them — almost a bookstore for each block of this quaint street. It’s easier to understand once you visit them, Bookshop Santa Cruz and Logos Books and Records have distinct personalities and Borders, well, is Borders, I didn’t need any magazines so I didn’t stop there.

Bookshop Santa Cruz

Bookshop Santa Cruz is a wonderful example of a community bookstore. When I asked for recommendations, the clerk pointed out the community member recommendations bookshelf. Every month a name of a community member is drawn who then recommends several books. The current community member is a friend of the clerk and she enjoyed all of the recommended books. I found an interesting book that I’ll be talking aobut in a later post. Additionally, there are staff recommendations shelves, recommendation cards throughout the store and signs pointing out which books are most popular in Santa Cruz.

This summer the store started a monthly Community Book Group with a local author, a moderator and whoever from the community can attend that evening. The store gives a 10% discount on the chosen book the month before the event. In August, Jonathan Frazen discussed The Corrections, it’s nice to see that he is more open to book discussions since the Oprah debacle. The sense of community interaction with Bookshop Santa Cruz goes on and on, they have a photograph contest for local photographers, an annual short story contest for local writers, a readers club that awards repeat purchases along with exclusive invitations, a gift service (Bookshop Santa Cruz Selects) where hand selected books are sent (gift wrapped, I love it when other people wrap) to the recipient quarterly, bimonthly or monthly.

One of my favorite community aspects is Trusted Source, a list of recommendations from local experts about their area of expertise. When I visited, the Trusted Source was the Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and he recommended five books, two of which I’ve read so I felt intellectually affirmed. I so fell in love with this idea that Claire and I are planning to add a similar page to the website, if you have any ideas about who to contact as an expert, be sure to let us know.

Bookshop Santa Cruz recently celebrated its 40^th anniversary and management was passed to a new generation as the owner’s daughter took over running the store. The store was hard hit by the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and had to exist in a tent (Booktent Santa Cruz) for three years until its present location on Pacific Avenue was ready. On moving day, scores of volunteers showed up to carry books from the tent to the new store. Community involvement flows both ways in Santa Cruz.

The store is a delight to wander through, it’s large airy and light. A friend who visited the store took a great inside shot; check it out on her blog. A few organizational tidbits I really liked – there were Young Adult bookshelves in both the adult fiction section and the children’s section. YA books have an adult following (especially among those of us who are in book groups with our kids) and it’s terrific to see shelves of books that have a crossover appeal. In the children’s section, there are tables dedicated to specific genres such as mystery or historical fiction, plus lists on the walls of the top ten books in the genres. What a gift to adults looking for books for children. My daughter has specific tastes, so I scanned the lists to see what she hadn’t read and actually came up with one or two choices.

Bookshop Santa Cruz is very supportive of local book clubs. They have a set of bookshelves with the club’s monthly picks, and if the club is registered with the store, the members receive a discount with on the book. What really impressed me was the quarterly book club mixer where there is a presentation, in the past a publisher has spoken, and people who are searching for a book group attend along with providing an evening out for an existing book group.

Logos Books and Records

I’m always hesitant about used bookstores, some have gems just waiting to be found while others feel like someone’s crammed garage. Logos Books and Records is an excellent example of a used bookstore. It was huge, the size of a large local library, extremely well organized with interesting books, not stacks of old textbooks or paperbacks with wrinkled covers. The front half of the top floor had shelves of fiction, but most prominent are the shelves of art books, truly beautiful books. The back half of the store was music. We showed the kids an old 45 and explained what an A side and a B side meant, they looked bewildered. One of them asked, is that like an iTune on each side? The people around us chuckled. We described how you put an extra gadget in the larger hole of the 45 so it would fit on the record player; my daughter has little to no experience with a record player (we gave ours away years ago) so she looked at it like I examine a crank to start a car.

Logos has the type of books you’re looking for in a used bookstore, lovely hard back editions of Winston Churchill’s History of World War II, or The Decline of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, I was tempted to buy them because they would look good on my bookshelves. I have a rule that I can’t buy something that I’m not going to read or it’s very likely that I’m not going to read (I have lots of books that I haven’t read, but I intend to read them), but maybe it’s time to re-think that rule.

Bookshop Santa Cruz
1520 Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Tel: 831.423.0900

Logos Books and Records
1117 Pacific Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Tel:831.427.5100

The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale AZ is primarily a mystery bookstore. I’m not a huge fan of mysteries, I’ve read Agatha Christie but I gave up at “C” for the Sue Grafton series. I was relieved when I asked the owner for a recommendation and she handed me The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It was a bestseller in 2005 when it was published, but I never got to it. The owner described the book as a re-telling of the Dracula story that’s suspenseful, but not creepy. It occurs to me that this could be a good complement to the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer that my daughter is reading over and over again.

The store itself is mostly glass walls so it’s sunny and bright (and possibly boiling at times, but it was early in the day and lovely). It has light stained bookshelves lining the solid walls, lots of free-standing bookshelves and several tables scattered throughout the store. One table was reserved for the next author event (a look at the calendar showed a constant flow of authors, so if you’re in the area, check to see if one is occurring), another table had new arrivals (not all of which were mysteries) and a large table with stacks of staff recommendations.

The store has a nice collection of signed and collectible books. Not all of the books were mysteries, nor were they all from author events, it appeared that some of them were sent from other sources. A check on the website confirmed that The Poisoned Pen receives collectible books on a regular basis. The website is terrific; if you’re interested in mysteries head over. There are recommendations, lists of newly arrived collectible books and dozens of interviews with authors. There is a six part interview with Diana Gabaldon that I’m in the middle of and will probably write about soon.

A unique aspect to this bookstore, in addition to being primarily a specialty bookstore, is its association with the Poisoned Pen Press. There are shelves and shelves of mystery books published by Poisoned Pen Press. The clerk I asked about the Press said that it was separate from the bookstore, so I looked on the website (be careful to look at Poisoned Pen Press, not Poison Pen Press which is a press for medieval cookery, a title which isn’t a great recommendation for medieval cookery in my opinion). The owner of the bookstore constantly bemoaned the fact that so many great mysteries were out of print, so her employees suggested she open a press to re-print them, and she did. The Press expanded to printing new works and several have been nominated for awards. The submission guidelines for new works are included on the website. Additionally, the Press runs a Mystery of the Month Club, join it and you’ll receive a new mystery each month.

Now that I’m back home, I wish I had specifically asked for a good mystery, maybe something with a historical fiction angle, I might have discovered a whole new area of reading!

The Poisoned Pen
4014 N. Goldwater Blvd., Ste 101
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Tel: 888-560-9919

Village Books in the Pacific Palisades isn’t exactly huge.  In fact, their slogan is “Large enough to serve you, small enough to know you.”  And they do–know me, that is.  And my kids.  It’s the kind of store where a kid can march up to someone who works there and say, “Can you help me find a book I’d like?” and they’re happy to wander over to the (surprisingly well-stocked given the limited space) children’s section and spend time pulling out titles and discussing them.

Village Books has an entire wall devoted to local book clubs, which makes for fine browsing in and of itself–I’m always looking through them, thinking, “Oh, I want to read that one,” even though I don’t actually belong to a single adult book club myself.  They have a cozy picture book nook, about the size of a closet, with a place to sit and shelves of children’s books circling all three walls so a small child can make himself comfortable as he plucks one book after another from the shelves to see if it strikes his fancy.  (One of my favorite photos is of my daughter reading out loud to her little brother who sits on her lap in that very nook.)  No one ever tells the kids they “can’t read without buying.”  ( Let’s hope parents are equally respectful and remind their kids to treat the books gently and then buy the ones that the kids love.)

There’s usually a conversation or two going on in the aisles or by the cash register, as the people who work there chat with their customers about options for gifts, the best choice from a reading list, their own favorite recent book and so on.  You can certainly ask anyone for a recommendation, but you don’t need to be cause the staff fills out little cards for their favorite books and sticks them in the stack so you can see who likes what and why.

Buying a book earns you some credit back–with enough purchases, you can eventually buy a book for free (a system my kids discovered and abused by asking if we had credit and using it for their own purchases).   They’ll order any book you want and have it there quickly.  It is a little store with big service.  And it’s pretty much in my own backyard.  Long may it live.

Village Books
1049 Swarthmore Avenue
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Hours: Monday-Friday: 10am-8pm and Saturday-Sunday: 10am-6pm