Seattle Times: Seattle bookstores were doomed. Then Third Place helped rewrite the story.

Third Place Books
Photo by Jerry Pickard

Moira Macdonald, Art Critic for The Seattle Times, wrote a warm and fascinating story about Third Place Books. She explains the origin of the store and its offspring, as well.

I don't know if she lives here and frequents Third Place, but she writes about it like a native.

A lot of the joy of Third Place is the experience, but I remind you that you can order books through Third Place just as easily as you can from Amazon - and a real person can help you and give advice. Then a trip to the store to pick up your book when it comes in and a cup of coffee from Burney Brothers or Honey Bear. And you don't have to worry about porch pirates stealing your books.

Moira's story begins:

If you walk through the entrance of Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park — right past the signs by the door that say EAT SLEEP READ — on a random weekday afternoon, you might find something nobody could have predicted a decade ago: a neighborhood bookstore, busy and thriving. On a recent visit, a little girl in a dinosaur costume rushed excitedly between the shelves, past a silver-haired gentleman reading quietly in an armchair. 

A young dad, squatting, showed his stroller-bound toddler a picture book; nearby, a mother and teen daughter, heads tilted at precisely the same angle, examined a table of new paperbacks. A woman with a resigned expression and a stack of five hardcovers joined the line at the registers. And thousands of books waited, neatly aligned; each of them just the right fit for someone.

The entire story here: Seattle bookstores were doomed. Then Third Place helped rewrite the story.

--DKH