My wife, Yuko Enomoto, and I lived in Japan for many years. We founded the press to bring out more literature in translation for an American audience. Americans are pretty impoverished when it comes to translations. We noticed that the Japanese, for example, have a wealth of the world’s literature translated into their language. So we set out to balance the scales a bit, even if it’s just a few books a year. The press has grown organically to include all sorts of literature, but we’ve kept our focus on Asia as much as possible.
The affordable part is always the catch. I’m not interested in making seventy-five-dollar art books to sit on some lucky rich person’s coffee table. We want students and people on tight budgets to be able to purchase something beautiful and engaging too.
Before we moved into Pike Place Market, we worked in Fremont. On some sunny days, we’d put a box of spare books by the Lenin statue with a “Free” sign, and we’d watch people dig through and take what they want. It was oddly reaffirming to see people examine the books and slip them into their backpacks, even though we were giving them away.
Pour Your Heart Into It by Howard Schultz. Just kidding. I would like to read How I Betrayed My City and Sold the Sonics to a Bunch of Okies by Howard Schultz, but it hasn’t been published yet.
Raymond Carver’s not a Seattle writer, but he’s just down the road: his Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? is beautiful and unsettling. And it always seems to be raining.
Bill Porter. Again, I’m stretching geography. He lives in Port Townsend. But he has an astounding knowledge of China and a warm, humorous storytelling style.
I enjoyed watching Daniel Handler alternately scare the crap out of and excite a bunch of little kids at a local bookstore, and then, a couple of years later, bring down the house at Benaroya Hall with Sherman Alexie emceeing. Sherman couldn’t stop laughing.
I would like to see a murder mystery set in South Lake Union.
Pike Place Market, where aliens infiltrate the human population without so much as a glance from us.
We live in Magnolia, so Magnolia’s Bookstore is our neighborhood store. The last book we bought there was Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick for my eleven-year-old son. He loved it.
I am sort of a nomad when it comes to bookstores. I don’t shop at any one store but love to roam the aisles of all the stores. I’m also a small-time collector. The last book I bought was a first-edition hardback of the The Elements of Style by E. B. White and William Strunk Jr. at the Globe Bookstore in Pioneer Square. That place has some hidden gems.
Working at the Elliott Bay Book Company. Or Third Place in Ravenna. Or manning the Espresso Book Machine at Third Place Press in Lake Forest Park. Or running the Chin Music showroom in Pike Place Market.