Independent Bookstore Day is just around the corner! My mother and I will be spending the entire day reveling in Seattle’s bookstore treasures, OF COURSE!*
*(You can read about our previous Independent Bookstore Day adventures in 2018, 2017, 2016, and the one that started it all, 2015.)
We’re mixing it up this year, however, and skipping the full 21-store challenge in favor of visiting fewer stores but spending longer enjoying each. And having time to stop and have a cappuccino perhaps!*
Weather which ranged from craptastic to middling in no way made 2018’s Seattle Independent Bookstore Day challenge anything less than its usual shiny and glorious adventure!
“Failure is not an option” declared my mother during our prep conversations about provisions and timing, and we, I’m happy to say, did not fail. Per tradition, (4 years in a row now), we got to all 19 stores and earned ourselves Champion titles (and 25% off cards) and we found books we were looking for and books that were looking for us.
Done!
Last night when I got home from another delightful (and yes, triumphant once again!) Seattle Independent Bookstore Day challenge I put this lovely mini-poster on my fridge where it belongs, with the photos of my other friends and family.
(artist: Third Place Book’s Stephen Crowe)
As usual—I can say as usual now that it’s been three years running—my mom (Marianne Bull) and I met on Bainbridge Island at Eagle Harbor Books at 8:30am for what is our mutually favorite most-looked-forward-to annual mother-daughter tradition. She drove up from Steilacoom on the peninsula side and I walked on the 7:55am ferry from Seattle. Continue reading
Independent Bookstore Day is nigh! Mom and I have worked out our provisions for our trek to 19 Seattle bookstores on Saturday with the proper mix of protein (for stamina) and sugar (for the party atmosphere).
The one thing I haven’t done and can foresee I won’t have time for is making up a list of books I want to get ahead of time so: random browsing and Staff Recommends shelves here I come!
I do have two recommendations for you, Continue reading
First an update: one hundred and eighteen . . . people who went to seventeen or more bookstores for Seattle Independent Bookstore Day last week! 118! (Last year it was 42.) !!!. And that’s only how many people went to all of ’em. No word yet on how many folks went to three or more and entered the drawing for gift certificates, but I’m sure many.
Book Plates of To-Day (To-day = 1902). After all:
An artistic book-plate is the expression in decorative illustration of the proprietor’s tastes, made by an artist who has sympathetically realized the feeling intended. It should objectify one, and only one, salient characteristic, either of temperament, habit, disposition, or pleasure, of its owner. If it does less, it is not individual; if it does more, it is not satisfying.
I’m sure you concur.
Horror book covers by Edward Gorey*. Continue reading
Seattle Independent Bookstore Day did it again! Such a festive day for all us ‘Willpower in a bookstore? What’s that like?’ folks to celebrate, support, and enjoy the excellent indie bookstore scene we’ve got here.
My mom and I went for it again—we took the challenge and went to 17 indie bookstores yesterday so we are Seattle Independent Bookstore Day Champions once more! (And can continue to get that lovely 25% off for another year.)
Here’s a recap of our adventures:
Ta-da! My completed passport for Seattle Independent Bookstore Day 2016.
Details TBD but I have been assured by some in-the-know booksellers that it will again be EPIC in Seattle.
Flashback to last year’s Seattle Independent Bookstore Day adventures, if you need a little reminder of how big Seattle does Independent Bookstore Day! But fret not if you’re outside the Emerald City limits, there ARE a lot of independent bookstores out there. Find yours here. Or, if you’re in Canada and call it Authors for Indies Day, here.
CAN. NOT. WAIT.
The theme for my 2015 is totally clear: Reading.
Books, bookstores, book contests, books books books. Hot on the heels of the Independent Bookstore Day challenge came Summer Book Bingo, the Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures’ totally awesome summer reading program for adults.
Get a Bingo, get entered for a gift certificate from a bookstore. Do a Blackout, get entered for a chance at season tickets to Seattle Arts & Lectures’ next season and books by all the speakers. Deadline: Labor Day.
OH HELL YEAH.
Oh what a glorious day we had yesterday! My mother and I met the Seattle Independent Bookstore Day Challenge and went to all 17 participating stores, got a fabulous haul of books, and had a blast all day long.
Proof! (with a funny note from Phinney Books who momentarily caused PANIC when I thought we’d forgotten to get a stamp from them and that they were already closed. But no, they had extended hours yesterday, and we had only gone one store on so we rushed back – turns out they had stamped it, just in the wrong place. Phew! And hey what’s a Challenge without a little adrenaline rush somewhere. I did have a receipt so probably could have proved our visit with that, but I wanted a complete passport and no chance of a technicality problem!
This Saturday, support your local bookstore!
Which, in Seattle, means you’ve got a LOT of choices.
Of those tons of choices, 17 are participating in Independent Bookstore Day—at the different stores you’ll find various events, discounts, exclusive art, free food, cool readings, kids storytimes, literary madlibs, in-store scavenger hunts, group Exquisite Corpses, wheels of fun and fortune, board game battles, a famous first lines quiz—I mean all that plus BOOKS, can it get any better!
I’m VERY excited! Continue reading
