A literal window into the past found in the floor of a tea house in the middle of the International District is just one of the literary destinations found on the Seattle, Washington UNESCO City of Literature map. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designates Cities of Literature based on things like the number of publishing companies a city is home to, or quantity of educational programming, and the hosting of literary festivals. In other words, the designation and city maps are not first and foremost geared toward book lovers visiting the city and looking for literary destinations they can visit at any time throughout the year. So below I have listed some of Seattle’s top literary destinations you can enjoy as a visitor at any time, and a book that takes place in Seattle that you should add to your TBR list (if you haven’t read it already).
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Top Pot
Top Pot is a donut and coffee shop with a decor aesthetic of ceiling-high bookshelves filled with old reference books, such as encyclopedias, that might have been found in a 1950s executive office setting. This donut shop is one of the stops on Seattle’s Donut Tour, so the donuts are worth the stop alone, but it’s the perfect place to grab breakfast (or an afternoon snack) for the book lover starting a day of literary exploration in Seattle.
Indie Bookshops
Seattle has several independent bookshops for all kinds of books and for all kinds of readers. At Pike Place Market you’ll find eclectic new and used bookshops, best suited in my opinion for those of a chaotic mind. More recently, Seattle has added a couple new strictly Romance bookshops to the scene. And then there’s the older, reliable, and generally well organized indie bookstores.
A Couple of the more quirky Pike Place Market bookshops:
Left Bank Books: This bookshop is for radical thinkers and owned and operated by an anarchist collective. If you’re willing to brave this shop, head to the top floor where you’ll find a window seat amongst the stacks.
BLMF Literary Saloon: Books Like a Motherf—-er Saloon is not for the feint of heart, the short on time, or those who are easily overwhelmed by too many stacks of books. In other words, if you have time to comb piles of books, you might find a treasure. But if the book you want is in the middle of a precariously balanced stack… good luck getting it out!
Romance bookshops:
Lovestruck in Seattle: This bookstore claims the title of Seattle’s First Brick and Mortar Romance Bookstore. It started out as a temporary pop-up shop through the Seattle Restored program and was such a hit that it’s now moved to a permanent location. This cute shop with pink bookshelves not only sells romance books, but adorable bookish merch.
Beguiled Books: This bookstore claims the title of Seattle’s Original Romance Bookstore. This shop started as a mobile trailer and has recently also moved to a permanent brick and mortar location.
Romance Book Recommendation:
If you’re looking to pick up a Romance book by a Washington State based author while in Seattle, I suggest the Stranded in Leavenworth series by K. L. Parsons. The first book is titled Love by a Landslide.
Or get Love by a Landslide by K. L. Parsons from Bookshop or Amazon and pick up the second book in the series, Love Under Snowfall, while in Washington.
General Indie Bookshops:
Elliot Bay Book Company: This is a good ol’ general indie bookstore. Well organized, has a little of everything, and my favorite feature is the book recommendation notes taped to shelves.
Literary Destination: Panama Hotel
Finally, after pouring through bookshops and sightseeing, you should find yourself in the International District by tea time and head for the tea house in the old Panama Hotel. The Panama Hotel once sat at the crossroads between Seattle’s Chinatown and Japantown when they were two culturally distinct areas. It’s this history that inspired the novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford.
The book is written in a split timeline format, going back and forth between the present day and about forty years prior. In the past timeline, a young Chinese boy and a young Japanese girl meet in school and become good friends. When Japanese families are told to leave Seattle during WWII and are taken to concentration camps, many in the Japanese community leave personal items for safe keeping in the basement of the Panama Hotel. Forty odd years later, the young boy is an elderly gentleman and he happens to walk by the hotel when a new owner is auctioning off items still in the basement that were never collected after the war. The gentleman talks his way into the basement to dig for sentimental items belonging to his childhood friend. This historical fiction book introduces the reader to a period of American History often glossed over in history classes. It should be a required read. We cannot forget what happened.
Visitors to the Panama Hotel tea house today are forced to confront this moment in American history as you can’t help but notice, as you walk to your table with hands cupped around a steaming mug of tea, a window in the tea shop floor. The window looks directly into the basement, still filled with personal effects from Seattle’s former Japanese citizens who never returned after the war. With tea in hand, one should take a moment of quiet contemplation at the edge of this window into the past.
If you read Ford’s novel before visiting the tea house, you may notice other subtle nods to the story amongst the decor. Like the record player. I don’t want to give too much away, but the search for a particular vinyl record is central to the story line.
The Panama Hotel was historically a working men’s boarding house with a bath house beneath it, and still operates as a hotel today (although the type where the bathroom is shared and down the hall), and the bathhouse is no longer functional. So if you’re looking for a literary related accommodation in Seattle, this hotel might suit you?
Have you visited any Seattle literary locations I haven’t listed? Have you visited any other UNESCO Cities of Literature? Let me know in the comments below!
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Kristine Harder says
A salesperson in Elliot Bay Books once inquired if they could help me find anything. I told them I was searching for a birthday gift for my father, and that he liked espionage stories. The young man asked me to tell him a little bit more about my father. I explained that he was from Copenhagen, and had been serving on a Danish ship when WW2 broke out, and subsequently couldn’t return to his homeland for the duration of the war. I was shocked when he led me to a Scandinavian action novel set during WW2 in the Baltic Sea! My Dad claimed it was one of the best books he’d ever read. 🙂
Elizabeth says
That’s such a sweet story! Thanks for sharing!