A Last Literary Look at Seattle Through the Eyes of University Bookstore--Plus Our Weekly Bestsellers

It's my last day in Seattle and I'm a little sad.  Not because it's going to start drizzling in a month and it won't stop until June.  That's just something old timers used to say to stop people from moving here.  Nobody listened.  And not because I'm going to be on a red eye tonight, groggily recommending Sophie Hannah's The Cradle in the Grave (our event is on September 19th), assuming I finish it on the trip back.

No, it's because I have hardly any time to write this blog post, and in addition to reporting on our weekly bestsellers (Ready Player One is our top fiction title this week, in advance of our event tomorrow), I want to get a word in about my trip to two branches of the University Bookstore in Seattle and Mill Creek.

The store had been remodeled when I had last been there, with a spiffy new logo (so that would have been before 2004) and yet my first emotional impression was of Madison's University Bookstore circa mid 1980s.  Clearly a college bookstore yet with a trade section so extensive (including traffic, with a bustle no less), that it got me a little teary.  Sure it had staff recs and very trend-on gift stuff and they sell Apple product and there's a cafe and well, everything that would confirm that this was indeed 2011.

But tucked in the back was of the second floor was a cashier where you bought gift cards and did things like pay off your account.  A cashier! You can't even find those in department stores anymore.

Plus there was lots of nostalgi-tastic old advertisements tucked away.  This store has been through some great typefaces.  And I'm very grateful that the store gave me a commemorative copy of their first 100 years. It looks great, and they printed it on their EBM (Espresso Book Machine).

I normally buy books at these things, but I wound up buying several pens from their office and art supply area, plus the new Original Toy Company robot that I hadn't yet brought into Boswell. 

Oh, and I also had a blueberry glazed donut at the Top Pot Stand inside the Mill Creek Store, and I also ventured over for an Aztec Chocolate one at Frost, a prototype-y store across the shopping center.

So what did I miss?  Here's what we sold this week at Boswell.

Hardcover fiction:

1. Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

2. The Keeper of Lost Causes, by Jussi Adler-Olson

3. The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson

4. The Bourne Dominion, by Eric Van Lustbader

5. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

Hardcover nonfiction:
1. 1493, by Charles Mann
2. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
3. Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
4. Cyril Colnik: Man of Iron, by Alan Strekow
5. Dog Sense, by John Bradshw

Paperback fiction:

1. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

2. David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

3. Montana 1948, by Larry Watson

4. Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

5. Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Paperback nonfiction:
1. Memoir of a Sunday Brunch, by Julia Pandl
2. Summers, by Margot Peters
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
4. Final Gifts, by Maggie Callahan

5. Life, by Keith Richards

Children's Books

1. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

2. Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
3. Me...Jane, by Patrick McDonnell
4. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
5. Out of Sight, by Gervais & Pittau

Don't forgot that all these books are available for sale on our website, boswellbooks.com, many in both paper and electronic editions.  And on most ebooks, our prices are the same as that tax-hating website, unnamed here.