Tag Archives: books

Horizon Books ends a 53-year-old Capitol Hill story

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Donald Glover

Horizon was giving away its remaining stock for free last weekend on 10th Ave (Image: CHS Facebook Group)

Let’s close this current chapter of neighborhood classics saying goodbye. Another of the longest running businesses on Capitol Hill closed quietly last weekend. It wasn’t a restaurant, cafe, or bar.

Horizon Books was proudly established on Capitol Hill 53 years ago making it contemporaneous with fellow class of 1971 business licensees Country Doctor Community Health Clinic, architect Roger Newell, and Vogue Coiffure Beauty Salon on our list of the oldest businesses in the area a few years back.

The bookseller that made its name on Capitol Hill long before Elliott Bay Book Company was transplanted to 10th ve quietly turned the page and liquidated its stock last weekend, handing out free books to anybody who stopped by its underground 10th Ave space home to “the largest and finest used books collections in Seattle.” Continue reading →

Seattle Women’s Chorus celebrates free expression with free books in little libraries, Banned & Beloved concert

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(Image: Seattle Women’s Chorus)

12th Ave is home to the city newest little free library as the Seattle Women’s Chorus headquarters has become a center of celebrating free expression with a banned book drive and Saturday’s performances of a Banned & Beloved concert at First Hill’s Town Hall:

Banning books is a nationwide issue. In just the first half of the 2022-23 school year, there were 1,477 instances of individual books banned, an increase of 28 percent from the second half of the prior school year, the vast majority of which are written by or about LGBTQIA+ individuals and people of color and centered on race, sexual orientation and gender, according to PEN America. Continue reading →

After 13 years of bikes and blogging, Tom Fucoloro is ready to tell the story of Seattle biking — even if Capitol Hill would rather walk

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(Image: Seattle Bike Blog)

By Cormac Wolf — CHS Reporting Intern

Tom Fucoloro has been behind the handlebars in Seattle for over 13 years. In that time he’s grown Seattle Bike Blog from a small side project to a pillar of the city’s thriving biking community, even netting a book deal in the process.

He moved to Seattle around 2009 after selling his car to fund his trip and biking full time. Faced with the problems of the city’s bike infrastructure he started looking for anyone who was documenting the experience of Seattle bikers.

“I kind of started looking around for someone else who was writing about bikes. And there wasn’t really anyone who was fully committed to the beat,” he says. “There’s an excellent bike blog down in Portland. And I thought, hey, I could do that in Seattle”

You can find Fucoloro Monday, August 28, at Capitol Hill’s Elliott Bay Book Company to celebrate the book’s release. He’ll be signing books — and likely fielding questions about our future I5-less Seattle

Bikes have been in Seattle longer than cars have, Fucoloro says, but he places the inception of the modern biking community at the first Bicycle Sunday on Lake Washington Boulevard in 1968. Continue reading →

A backbone of a bustling bookstore: Bibliopole turned owner Tracy Taylor talks shop as Elliott Bay Book Company turns 50

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(Image: Elliott Bay Book Company)

Hall, Taylor, and Burgess

By Kali Herbst Minino

Today, staff at Elliott Bay Book Company will lift piles of books up and down the wooden stairs and replenish tall bookshelves for customers to wander through. Tracy Taylor, general manager turned co-owner of the store, continues to work alongside her floor staff as the group of booksellers restock the colorful merchandise celebrating Elliott Bay’s 50th anniversary. Having worked at the store for more than 30 years before purchasing it alongside Murf Hall and Joey Burgess last year, Taylor has been there through the majority of the bookstore’s half-century of history that started in Pioneer Square — and now is an even bigger part of its future on Capitol Hill.

The first time she submitted an application to Elliott Bay, she wasn’t hired.

“The person at that time didn’t hire me because they didn’t think I’d stick around long enough,” Taylor said. “I laugh about that now and say ‘I’m here just to show them that I could stay long enough.’”

Taylor moved to Seattle at the beginning of 1990 after getting a teaching certificate and working at an independent bookstore chain in Denver, the Tattered Cover. She moved to Seattle to pursue teaching, but her love for bookselling changed her plans.

A couple of days later, Elliott Bay gave her a call because the other applicant hadn’t worked out. Learning as much about the bookselling business as possible, she was mentored by the original founder of the bookstore, Walter Carr. Taylor eventually became a co-manager, and when Carr sold the business in 1999, she was offered a position as general manager. Continue reading →

Shops Close Too Early, a book of ‘transit-oriented’ poems from a Capitol Hill writer

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By Jadenne Radoc Cabahug, CHS reporting intern

Shops Close Too Early is Josh Feit’s new book of poetry inspired by urban jungles around the world, including Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood — and a manifesto to better public transportation and affordable housing in Seattle.

Former editor of The Stranger and and co-founder of Seattle’s news site PubliCola, Feit published what he calls a “transit-oriented poetry” book. Feit uses his two decades of experience as a Seattle city hall reporter covering city planning, housing and transportation policy as inspiration for his poems.

“I realized as I was writing about it, I just wanted to say more and more iIn ways that went beyond news stories, and that just felt more magical and a little philosophical,” Feit said.

Originally from the suburbs of Washington D.C., Feit says Capitol Hill is one of more urban parts of Seattle, since he feels the city as a whole is largely suburban in comparison to other cities around the world. Continue reading →

Nook and Cranny Books: What if you read about a Capitol Hill bookstore for sale — and bought it?

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(Image: Nook and Cranny Books)

A chef hoping to someday mix her worlds of food and books is starting with the book end of things on Capitol Hill.

“I joke that it was, ‘I guess I’ll just go buy this book store,'” Maren Comendant tells CHS.

It kind of was.

Comendant is the proud new owner of Nook and Cranny Books, a tiny shop along 15th Ave E. CHS reported on the decision in March by Kari Ferguson to find a new owner to take over Oh Hello Again after just over a year of business at the little bookstore where she introduced the idea of retail bibliotherapy to Seattle with a shop organized by topics — “mental health, everyday problems, bettering yourself, relationships, travel, and many more.”

Comendant bought the business including Ferguson’s stock and set about shaping her own shop. She has stuck with the the bibliotherapeutic organization saying she and Ferguson share “a very similar literary aesthetic.” Continue reading →

Signs of Capitol Hill normalcy: Little Oddfellows set to reopen inside Elliott Bay Book Company

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A sign of normalcy — and a sign of the times — Little Oddfellows, one of Linda Derschang’s remaining Capitol Hill joints, is making tentative plans to reopen Friday inside 10th Ave’s Elliott Bay Book Company.

Even one of the city’s longest running food and drink entrepreneurs is being challenged by the pandemic’s ongoing impact on the labor force. Derschang says Friday’s opening is pending last minute hiring including an assistant manager and a line cook.

While the cafe has remained dark, the Elliott Bay store has continued to serve customers through the pandemic and is now a union shop. Retail on 10th Ave has also gone through some changes. Macklemore’s golf fashion play Bogey Boys stopped through for a temporary stay before teeing off again in University Village. New era furniture retailer Joybird is lined up to take over the former Everyday Music space across 10th Ave. Last summer, Glossier restarted its global beauty retail ambitions with a new store on the street. Continue reading →

‘Show me the person, I’ll show you the right book for them’ — Twice Sold Tales begins 35th year on Capitol Hill

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Jamie Lutton started selling used books out of a cart on Broadway. Thirty five years later, she’s in a brick and mortar building on Capitol Hill. Resident at 1833 Harvard Ave since 2008, Twice Sold Tales has survived every kind of change in the book.

“I used to be able to charge more because Amazon didn’t have penny and postage books…they took about 3/4 of my income. People like to sit quietly at home and get a box rather than venture out,” Lutton says, though she does sell on Amazon. “I joined the enemy.”

Lutton at work

Her bookseller origin story starts in February 1988 when Lutton said she was scolded by a city official because she didn’t have a vendor’s license for her burgeoning book cart business. The rest is her story. Now, Twice Sold Tales is starting its 35 year on Capitol Hill.

Lutton remembers days when there were there many more used bookstores on the Hill. “There was one down Olive that just sold science fiction, besides Horizon, there was one down the street on 15th, there was me, and there was Colin’s Rare Books, that’s what I remember from the early ’90s.”

“Now they’re all gone”, Lutton said, “rents and internet, that’s my memory of the Hill, more bookstores, lower rents, happier people.”

Continue reading →

Here’s your chance to own a Capitol Hill bookshop

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(Image: Oh Hello Again)

Amazon is getting out of the meat space bookstore business. Here is your chance to get into it.

Born 15 months ago at the start of the first winter of the pandemic, 15th Ave E bibliotherapeutic bookshop Oh Hello Again is searching for a new owner:

This neighborhood bookstore has received a great deal of local, national, and global hype and needs a new owner! Located near Kaiser Permanente on Capitol Hill, the shop receives a ton of foot traffic. We have loyal neighborhood customers and the option to take over an online store selling books and monthly subscription boxes. All store fixtures, technology (point of sale system, speaker, etc.), shipping materials, and inventory is included with the sale.

Continue reading →

Bookkeeping | Reaching for good reads amid Cafe Lago’s top shelf flavors

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(Image: Rod Huntress)

By Kimberly Kinchen

For our final edition of Bookkeeping and a look at the books local businesses love so much they keep them in easy reach, CHS ventures to Montlake for another chat with a member of the Lago family. Way back in July, we stopped through Portage Bay for a perusal of the shelves inside Little Lago. At  sibling Cafe Lago in the lowlands of Montlake, owner Carla Leonardi and chef Lucas Neve reach high to draw on Italian classics served in an accessible style.

How does a book make it onto these shelves? Neve: A lot Carla has collected over the years. A number are the pasta chef’s [Justin Dissmore]. Most of mine stay at home…. Sometimes we need recipes that we borrowed from in the past. A lot of them are just reference points, especially pasta and bread books. We bake our own bread here so we need to troubleshoot sometimes or find a new pasta shape for this week’s special …. They are mostly all purchased for home use. You’ve read it a couple times, and then it ends up on our shelf here. Continue reading →