Recently some members of the industry press were abuzz and atwitter about the fact that Amazon asked some booksellers, including me, whether they could sell Kindles in independent bookstores. I guess this constitutes news, but it is no big deal to me. (We politely said no.) It does make me think about my mixed feelings about Amazon. Some people might be surprised to hear the adjective “mixed” being used. But I have a number of good things to say about the company.

The Good: They are building their headquarters right in the middle of Seattle. I think this is mostly a fantastic shot in the arm for the Seattle community and very exciting to watch. They employ and give a good wage to many families on Mercer Island, many of whom shop at our store. They are an impressively strategic company, forward thinking and creative. I have relatives who work there. I have two terrific employees that used to work for them. They are brilliant designers of customer-centric web services. You can find little tiny parts to things that break easily. And weird shoe sizes.

The Bad: It seems that they are unusually predatory and all about winning market share at any cost. They seem to be after everyone and everything. They seem relatively uninterested in supporting non-profits and the local community. They have made it very hard for small-town brick-and-mortar stores of all kinds. This does real damage to our way of life and the fabric of our communities. I don’t believe they care very much about books, just eyeballs and shopping carts. I believe there is a real chance that they will ruin the publishing world. Their offices and facilities seem to be incredibly competitive and not very supportive places to work … not sure this is healthy for the young.

So I guess in sum, it is just life. Life and the cost of big capitalism. If I could control everything it would be different. But I am just trying to run a little bookstore and serve the nice folks who come in our door. That and keep our garden weeded.

—Roger

P.S. Regarding big companies and small folks: My favorite image is of Edith Macefield’s house in Ballard. She is the lady who wouldn’t sell her house when she was offerred a million dollars. The big building was built around her. Later people in Ballard started sporting tattoos with her house and the word “steadfast.” It’s the only tattoo I have ever considered ….

On Tuesday, May 7th, author Jonathan Evison paid a call on Island Books to celebrate the paperback publication of his novel The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving. It tells the story of Benjamin, on whom Fortune hasn’t smiled of late. He’s down to his last dollar when forced to take a job as a caregiver for Trevor, a nineteen-year-old kid confined to a wheelchair. The friendship that unexpectedly—and sometimes painfully—grows inspires an audacious sense of healing and forgiveness.

This was the third in our series of author talks presented in conjunction with the Mercer Island Arts Council (the first two events featured Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Tara Conklin, author of The House Girl). Three terrific, award-winning authors, all speaking right here in downtown Mercer Island. We’ll continue to host authors next fall and really hope to share these remarkable events with more people. Hint, hint.

This was a Big Deal, and we were nervous beforehand. To prepare, we read Evison’s posted author bio and learned he liked beer. Really liked beer. But not IPAs. Cue the panic beer run ten minutes before signing. He was the first author we’ve had who pretty much went through a six-pack of Coronas while making his amazing talk. He was in no hurry and stayed late having long and generous conversations with the audience. There was great discussion of Dickens and Shakespeare, and a great love expressed for the small people of life, à la Steinbeck and Twain. The novels of all those writers show how life acts upon regular people and how they experience it. As Evison puts it, he wants to “experience as many other lives as he can” through his deeply empathic writing. We also enjoyed great discussion on the importance of audience, not in the marketing sense but in the way the ultimate meaning of a novel arises out of the reader’s experience.

I don’t know that we have ever seen an author as deeply dedicated to the novel and to the experience of writing as Jonathan Evison. Though on the surface he is a very funny and profane storyteller, that’s not all he is. As one knowledgeable customer said, “he’s the real deal.” He’s certainly a guy going through life at a full gallop. Again, read the bio—“M for manic.” It was a very impressive evening.

—Roger

This is my mother’s coat. She wore it for more than five decades walking in the woods on damp fall days in Vermont.

Both my parents grew up during the Depression and as so many others of that era they held thrift up as the ultimate virtue. You wore clothes until they wore out. This coat is buckskin so it may never wear out and now belongs to her granddaughter, my daughter Emma.

But for my parents, books and education were not something to scrimp on. In the pre-screen days they believed there was nothing more illuminating. Wear the old coat, buy the new book. Give the gift of story and light.

—Roger

In honor of our anniversary we “mobilized” our typewriters for a “Type-A-Thon” (Look out Amazon!). Cindy oiled and dusted a half dozen machines from the collection and we set up a couple of typing pools in the store and opened the doors last Thursday.

The whole event almost came to a screeching halt when the first customer saw the blackboard announcement and grumbled “only on Mercer Island!” Apparently he misread the sign to be a “Type A”-thon and thought that genetics and drinking the local water ought to be enough to assure that our children grow up to be leaders and that we didn’t need to have some sort of championship at the bookstore. We straightened him out and then invited him and the public to bang out their thoughts and frustrations on the old black keys.

The public was shy at first but a few ringers showed up and got the place tapping. We had poets, grateful customers, parents teaching children about the shift key, long discussions about the merits of “magic margins,” former secretaries, current writers. Two quotes from the sheaves of onion skin:

“Another memory is receiving typed letters from my grandmother who liked to type in carbon so she could send the same letter to all of the grandchildren at once. It was a bummer to receive the last of the four copies because the type was rather faint.”

“Dear Island Books, Thank you for letting me use the typewriters. It was really fun. I really enjoyed it. My mom put this day on the calendar a long time ago, and we have been counting down the days. I loved it. Typewriters are a lot different than computers. You can’t save anything on the desktop unless it was your literal desktop.”

And finally, hats off (again!!!) to Terry Pottmeyer for the wonderful inspiring postcard with the trivia, instructive challenges, and fantastic watercolors. Did you know that “stewardesses” is the longest word typed solely with the left hand? Even better, “lollipop” is the right hand longest word. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party….

—Roger

More photos available on our Facebook page.

I am discouraged by the state of literacy amongst the youth of this island. Shocked, actually. When I was young we walked barefoot down country roads to the town library  where the friendly librarian offered up and we hungrily devoured the classics. Peter Rabbit, Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Wind in the Willows, Mark Twain, Midsummer’s Night Dream. We learned of the wider world and how it works through reading. Life lessons.

For example: You learn that when a boy from Mississippi hands you a paintbrush and says how much fun it is to paint a fence you might want to consider the offer carefully. Basic stuff. Thus I was shocked when I told everyone how much fun it would be to move five tons of shelves and books so I could get our store re-carpeted and no one blinked an eye. Have these people never read about Tom Sawyer or Br’er Rabbit? Well, I am grateful the carpet job is behind us and I know I had fun, but I’m less sure about my hard-working, early-rising “volunteers.” To make amends and to further the education of islanders young and old, I will make all Mark Twain books half price for the month of July. The world is full of flimflam men and some of them might even take the guise of a kindly old bookseller…

With true gratitude and affection for you all,

—Roger

Maybe you’re looking for a reason to pay Island Books a visit. If so, Jim Lynch’s appearance on Wed, May 16th, gives you an awfully good excuse. He’s touring in support of his new novel, Truth Like the Sun, which paints a dual portrait of Seattle, showing it as it was in the 1960s and as it is in our current century. Lynch is a Mercer Island product and a gem among Northwest writers, and this latest book may be his finest yet. The event is free, and seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. We hope to see you there!

—Roger

Perhaps unexpectedly, poetry has been a pillar of my life. Perhaps even more unexpectedly I trace it back to my father.

My dad (who would be ninety-five if he were alive) was a good man and a caring father, but there was nothing touchy-feely or poetic about him. He was a wrestler in college, and he emerged with a pug nose and a slightly cauliflower ear, and a short, stout, strong body. He had hard hands, loved chopping wood and working outside. He loved his tools and knew how to fix everything. He made me my first skis. He took us hiking, canoeing, and sailing. He was a cheap, tough, self-sufficient man who never whined or talked much about his feelings even through his long final bout of cancer. He was also quite deaf for most of his life so usually conversations were a bit hit and miss and sometimes he just found it easier to go sand the bottom of his boat or fix a chair than follow all the teenage chatter.

That’s why it was always so strange when standing around a burning brush pile in the snow he would suddenly spout out something from Sir Walter Raleigh, or Longfellow, or Shakespeare. Some teacher must have gotten to him in elementary school and somehow planted poems in the deep recesses of his mind. They would spill out like pennies and quarters and we kids would stand as stunned as if my dad had actually dropped money on the ground. He’d smile, a little proud, a little embarrassed and then go on as if nothing had happened.

The poetry that we all participated in growing up happened at Christmas. Mostly because we were cheap (but also a little twisted), gifts were not the central focus of Christmas for us. Christmas was about “sentiments.” These were long, ridiculous, witty, cutting, pieces of doggerel that were written on yellow legal pads and taped to presents that were meant to somehow convey what you thought of your siblings’ and parents’ evolving personalities over the past year. These were performance pieces, and the more tortured the rhyme the better you stood in this early family rendition of the poetry slam.

When I went off to college I had taken on poetry in the serious way that only a college student can. I sat in coffee shops with Ezra Pound’s Cantos, minored in writing poetry, had classes with famous poets. I sat in their living rooms discussing the finer points, published in literary reviews, and wore shabby clothes.

By graduate school I burned out—too much focus on myself, too much pressure to publish, even for a dreamy youth in the hippie days. For the next fifteen years I focused on working as a teacher, and poetry mostly hibernated…like a sport you once were good at in high school. Warm memories, but I wasn’t going back.

When I came to Island Books, something stirred when I was shelving in the poetry section, handling the old familiar volumes. I began to think I wanted poetry back in my life. So one day I came up with the idea of a Poetry Potluck. This would be a monthly gathering of enthusiasts who would each bring three poems by poets they liked to an evening meeting with plenty of wine and cheese. As with a potluck, all poems would be received with gratitude and appreciation and shared with whomever showed up that night.

I asked a few likely prospects to come, and almost twenty years later we are still meeting. It turned out to be an extraordinary group of poets, characters, readers, and friends. One woman now in her nineties helped found Hugo House, studied with Roethke, and knew or heard just about every important poet in the Northwest in the last fifty years. Another woman reads us poems in Chinese, old Italian, Polish (you should hear her Symborska!) and it seems any other language that comes along. An old gent quotes from ee cummings lectures he went to in the forties, and shows up with a poem from an old New Yorker magazine (ca. 1962) that was “just lying around the house.” There’s a psychiatrist who makes us cry with the sensual, intimate poems he brings, and then there’s the Ogden Nash fans who recite until we roar with laughter. A few of us bring old casseroles (Frost, Dickinson, Blake, Billy Collins, Mary Oliver) and others bring the latest poems from far and wide. There is no judging here. Just wine, talk of family and friends, poems, and sharing. Almost twenty years of sharing.

This group is quite a private group at this point but if I could speak for them, I feel sure they would suggest that the most important thing about poetry is not to get it right. It’s to look for it, give it air, and spread it around. Generously.

—Roger

Don’t forget that in celebration of National Poetry Month, we’re running a poetry contest open to all ages. The contest ends April 30th, so enter soon.

The kindred spirits of Washington’s own Watermark Bindery are our all-time favorite makers of blank books for all purposes. Their handmade papers are bound with love and care between unique and gorgeous covers, and they’ve been producing these one-of-a-kind books since 1973, the same year our store was founded. Whether you’re looking to jot a few notes or create an heirloom album, you won’t find anything else that can meet Watermark’s beauty or quality.

The good folks of Watermark are making a special trip from their island just off Port Townsend to visit us on Sunday, February 5th. They’ll show us how their books are made, and maybe even give us a chance to try the techniques ourselves. They’ll also be bringing some custom personalized notebooks made exclusively for Island Books, and these, like all our journals, will be discounted 20% until Valentine’s Day. We can’t think of a more perfect gift for your loved one (and it’s OK to be selfish and get your own, too).

You’re invited to partake of some food and wine on us while you attend what’s sure to be a fascinating event. All the details about it are on our events calendar and we can give you directions in case you’ve forgotten how to get here. I should mention that things start at 3:00pm. I hear there’s some kind of football game going on then, but this’ll be way better. Don’t miss it.

—Roger

Everyone who walks into the bookstore has a story but some stories are truly special and need to be shared. I met Kim Allison one day with her husband (who owns and runs Cellar 46) when they were searching for something to entertain their young kids on a long drive. I had no clue she was Director of Breast Pathology at the University of Washington and no clue that she had survived stage 3 breast cancer herself shortly after the birth of her second child. She has written the book Red Sunshine about her experience and it is featured in Jane Brody’s column in this week’s New York Times. Taken from her journal, it’s an amazing story told from the unusual point of view of a patient/doctor and one that conveys powerfully her emotional and physical journey. The Jane Brody column is worth reading and we have the book at the store.

Share it.

—Roger

Today’s Amazon headlines could be the subject of a long conversation but perhaps I would be just spinning wheels and life’s too short for too much of that. But I do want comment on the language “Amazon adds Fire to the Tablet Wars.” When did commerce morph into combat?

I don’t think I am naive—I’ve run a small business for twenty-five years—but why does shopping (or shopping for shoppers) have to be war? I love shopping. Drooling over tents at REI, scoring a coat at Goodwill, browsing the market on a Sunday. There is an experience, an exchange, some humanity. It feels here like someone is trying to capture customers, get them “locked in” on their turf. At any cost. Later in the paper an Amazon executive describes the new device as a “buying tool.” When did we start to need “buying tools?” Don’t these tools only work at one store—thus limiting our independence, privacy, and options? Like I said, a long conversation about corporations, people, needs, wants, the big picture, and the long view. But the words “wars” and “buying tool” made it hard to choke down the cereal.

—Roger

Since I have had teenagers I find it entertaining to start my evening lectures with the phrase “ In my day…”  It sort of lends a historic and pedagogic weight to my youthful adventures, which I believe gives lasting value for my children …

The other night I was explaining to my fifteen-year-old son how to tell if a girl at school was worthy of pursuit. “In my day,” I said, “I would try to get invited to her house and sneak up to her bedroom. There, the most important thing to do is to scan her bookshelf.” Too much Secret Garden, horse books, and Leonard Cohen poetry—run! Penguin paperbacks, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sylvia Plath—time to go to work and turn on the charm.

Scanning a new acquaintance’s bookshelf in my twenties and thirties was Standard Operating Procedure for deciding whether friendship or romance was likely to blossom. To this day, if cocktail conversation grows stale you will find me in a corner quietly reading the spines of the household’s cookbooks.

“You know, dad,” my son says, ”some of my friends don’t have books in their homes. Their parents buy their kids cable TV.” This sort of talk makes me woozy like the ground is moving under my feet. I sort of stumble backwards into my great green chair. “Well, good luck with THAT!” I exhale, before opening my book for the evening. And later, as I fall asleep I drift through room after room of my grandfather’s house with its piles of dusty leather books and shelves of odd volumes. The books in that house spoke to me and somehow I think the books on my shelves still speak, to each other, late at night, after the lights are out.

—Roger

(Photo of an empty Borders store by Reddit user Jessers25)

I wanted to go to the Seattle Art Museum with my teenager yesterday but they were closed and we had paid for parking so we set off to explore Pike Place Market. We ended up in the comic book store downstairs, Golden Age Collectibles, where the owner was speaking to someone saying that “this is the oldest comic book shop in America.” Who knew? Who knew that we have one of the two poetry-only bookstores in America? Open Books in Wallingford. Who knew that Island Books opened six months after Elliott Bay and used the same lumber mill for their cedar shelves? Have you ever been to Cinema Books (a bookstore devoted to film only) in the U district? Wessel and Lieberman—a truly fine used bookstore with ephemera and broadsides? We wander the web in the night but what we really need to be doing is wandering our own city. There are riches out there, and real places. Spend an afternoon with your child just browsing either at my store or someone else’s. You won’t regret it.

—Roger

The caption says:

The Book Shop for the Traveler in Pennsylvania Station;

My Great-Grandfather’s Bookstore

—Roger

You can study the picture closer on the wall right outside our children’s section.

This table in our store is an excuse to put The Old Leatherman out front and center. One of the strangest, most astounding books we’ve seen in awhile. I also am a big fan of Orientation but as with most oddities it could be an acquired taste. Certainly memorable and fresh.

—Roger