Suggestions for a Seattle Book Crawl

Today’s guest post is from Ann Glusker, formerly a librarian with the Seattle Public Library and now with the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Thanks to the Medical Library Association News for sharing this post; we trust with this handy guide that the medical librarians visiting our fair city later this month will have a wonderfully bookish time. 

Seattle is a book-lover’s paradise. It’s been in the top 3 of “Most Literate Cities” since the list started in 2003! Maybe there’s something about gray weather and coffee that lend themselves to reading. Given this, it’s not surprising that we have some fantastic bookstores. Feel like a stroll to see some of them? On the map below, you will find a Seattle Book Crawl—it should take about an hour (jf you skip 1A and 2A), but of course you may find yourself needing a little more time to spend in the stores themselves! Also, the basic route is pretty much all downhill, with a gentle uphill slope up First Avenue and back up Pike St. to the Convention Center after you leave Pike Place Market. And we can’t even count how many coffee shops you’ll pass!

1) Start off at the Convention Center!

Creepy Medicine!

Photocredit: Elycefeliz on Flickr

There’s just something fascinating about weird medical history. It seems impossible that anyone ever thought, “Wow, I could stick a leech on that wound and it might help it get better!” but, someone did (and they were right—leeches are used today in recovery from various types of surgery and they have been used medicinally for centuries). Not all treatments were so prescient; take poor George Washington for example. Not only did he have horrible ivory dentures, and various illnesses during his life, but he was so vigorously bled by his doctors that they hastened his death. And then there’s trepanation, or drilling holes in the skull. It’s also been used for centuries, and patients often survived it! 

Homelessness and Our Society: A Deeper Dive

Follow us throughout the fall for posts which highlight library resources and information that supports the Tiny: Streetwise Revisited exhibit at the Central Library and its community programming.

As you may know, the Central Library is currently presenting a thought-provoking and poignant exhibit, called Streetwise Revisited. We’ve put together some great resources that focus on the “heart” of the matter—the poignancy and sometimes despair of living without a home, the interaction of feeling and art, fiction and film treatments of homelessness, and more.  But what about the “head” aspect, of why homelessness exists in our society, why it is so persistent and pervasive, and where we can go in addressing it?

If you want to do a deeper dive into these questions, take a look at these three examples to spur thinking and discussion in these works!

Mosquitoes—They Suck!

A female mosquito of the Culicidae family (Culiseta longiareolata). Source: Wikipedia

Mosquitoes actually have some good points—they are a food source for many animals, they pollinate flowers, and they even have the capacity to learn. But mostly, as any of us who have been bitten can attest, THEY SUCK (at least, the females do). August 20 is World Mosquito Day, and we welcome you to come see our display on this ubiquitous pest at the Central Library this month on level 7; it has some great offerings if you want to learn more about our bloodthirsty friends.

Book Bingo: Nonfiction

Join The Seattle Public Library and Seattle Arts & Lectures for our 2^nd annual Summer Book Bingo for adults! Follow us throughout the summer for reading suggestions based on each category. 

Fancy a walk in the countryside?

The English love a long walk through the rainy countryside– much like Seattleites! We here in Seattle tend to like our countryside a bit wilder, and not so much molded by human hands, but there are plenty of rugged and untamed landscapes in England as well. The other thing we in Seattle and our friends in England have in common is our connection to our weather; misty and mysterious or sunny and sociable, we appreciate its ups and downs and the way it supports growth of all kinds.