Summer for me has always meant hosting visitors- family, friends, friend’s pets, etc.. As summer enters in its own quintessential green, flourishing, Seattle way, I began the touring season in Seattle with a good friend of mine. On one of the most notable days, we decided to visit various Seattle neighborhoods and make sure to stop in each neighborhood’s most renowned bookstore.
Starting on Capitol Hill, we toured the relatively new location of the Elliott Bay Book Company. Attached to a café (just as any bookstore should be), the Elliott Bay Book Company is the place to go to find any new book with crisp pages and beautiful book covers. Although the location is new, the Book Company is a Seattle favorite and has a distinct Seattle charm. With wooden floors and neighboring brick walls and buildings, it has an unfinished feel that seems also chic and collected. There was ample space to read, browse, and just relax. After browsing a few books on genealogy, we proceeded across Portage Bay.
Our next stop was in University District, Magus Books. Another brick building, romantically overrun with ivy, Magus books has an extremely different atmosphere than Elliott Bay. Magus Books is for the book lover that loves to feel only surrounded by books. Additionally, this is the place to get a used, extremely cheap book of that obscure book you have been looking for everywhere. With towering shelves (from my 5′ 3″ perspective), Magus is overflowing with used books. It definitely contributes to the U-District charm, giving an old world vibe to the eclectic area. After quite a long browse here of Henry James and a glance of Beat Poetry, we traced Lake Union to our final destination.
In Fremont, we almost missed Ophelia’s books, due to our tired legs, time constraint and somewhat hidden doorway. Yet, once we entered Ophelia’s, we were glad we did. This was perhaps the most unique of our tour. As we walked in, the woman behind the counter did not greet us, but the cat did. Suddenly, it made sense. If you like cats, spiral staircases, books in quaint nooks and no pressure to make small talk- this is ideal. It seemed that the bookstore used to be a house, since there were various rooms, a loft and an underground floor with used books and much space to read. Unlike Magus, this had a more collected, less overwhelming feel. This is the place to get lost when your in-laws are in town. After we glanced through the travel section and realized Uganda is not the best travel destination, we decided our book tour was over.
Although this overview provides a small sampling of the various, numerous bookstores in Seattle, it shows that Seattle provides books and atmospheres for any individual. Whether someone wants a book with their coffee, or to find a quick read on their study break, or to get lost before seeing the Fremont Troll, there are endless options of reading material in Seattle. However, if you do want to do the walking tour yourself, don’t make the mistake (like we did) of underestimating the moodiness of Seattle weather- layers, layers, layers!
