Seattle Stories

New to Seattle, or to reading about Seattle? Take a trip through the many stories of Seattle with this selection of fiction and nonfiction, recent and classic.

Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle, by Daudi J. Abe Abe
Interviews with artists and journalists trace how rapping, DJing, breaking, and graffiti flourished in Seattle, far from the hip hop epicenters of New York and Los Angeles. 

Uncle Rico’s Encore: Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle, by Peter Bacho
Autobiographical essays explore the experiences of Filipino Americans in Seattle from the 1950s-1970s, from everyday moments and celebrations to coordinated acts of defiance and activism.

Written in the Stars, by Alexandria Bellefleur
Free-spirited astrologer Elle and buttoned-up actuary Darcy go on a disastrous date but agree to pretend they’re dating to make it through the holidays, finding that opposites really do attract.

Nature Obscura: A City’s Hidden Natural World, by Kelly Brenner
Brenner explores and celebrates Seattle’s microhabitats – shores, wetlands, forests, parks – and the many organisms that share our urban landscape.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown
The inspiring story of the University of Washington rowing team, which overcame adversity to triumph at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Black Hole, by Charles Burns
A strange plague has hit teenagers in Burns’ horror graphic novel set in Seattle’s Roosevelt and Ravenna neighborhoods in the 1970s. Originally published as a series of 12 comic books.

Hollow Kingdom, by Kira Jane Buxton
A northeast Seattle crow, armed with a TV education and a canine pal named Dennis, may be the one to save humanity from extinction. Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

My Unforgotten Seattle, by Ron Chew
Chew, a third-generation Seattleite and journalist, paints vivid descriptions of Beacon Hill, Chinatown International District, local politics and community leaders in this deeply personal memoir.

Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in an American City, by Josephine Ensign.
Digging through layers of Seattle history, Ensign examines the roots of poverty and homelessness in Seattle, including public policy, health care, and the search for community.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford.
When renovations at a Seattle hotel reveal a basement full of stored items from Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II, Chinese American Henry remembers his childhood friendship with Japanese American Keiko.

Dog Biscuits, by Graham, Alex
Gussy tries to keep his dog biscuit business going amidst Covid anxiety, police brutality, dating apps and the loneliness of lockdown during the summer of 2020 in this graphic novel.

The Final Case, by David Guterson
In this examination of justice and injustice, a Seattle attorney takes on the fraught case of white adoptive parents of a young girl born in Ethiopia charged with her murder.

Seattle Prohibition: Bootleggers, Rumrunners & Graft in the Queen City, by Brad Holden
The 20 years of Prohibition in Seattle saw plenty of entrepreneurial spirit and mayhem as bootleggers, moonshiners, and corrupt cops tried to outsmart the Seattle Prohibition Bureau.

Still Here: A Southend Mixtape from an Unexpected Journalist, by Reagan E.J. Jackson
Journalist Jackson’s collection of essays and articles explores the stories of Seattle’s Black communities, including her own, often overlooked by local media outlets.

I’m in Seattle, Where Are You?, by Mortada Gzar
Iraqi writer Gzar recounts his immigration to the US, his search for an American solider with whom he had a clandestine romance in Baghdad, and the aid and friendship found in Seattle’s gay community.

Lake City, by Thomas B. Kohnstamm, Thomas B.
After a fall from grace, Lane Bueche returns to his childhood home in Lake City and is pulled into a dubious scheme to regain what he has lost.

No-no Boy, by John Okada
Sent to prison for refusing the World War II draft, Japanese American Ichiro returns to Seattle after the war and faces hostility from family and community. A reprint of Okada’s 1957 classic.

Devil’s Chew Toy, by Rob Osler
A teacher turned amateur investigator, a missing go-go dancer, a bulldog, and Seattle’s gay community combine in this cozy mystery.

Grave Reservations, by Cherie Priest
Psychic travel agent Leda Foley saves detective Grady Merritt from boarding a plane that explodes, inspiring Grady to ask for Leda’s help with a case.

Secret Seattle: An Illustrated Guide to the City’s Offbeat and Overlooked History, by Susanna Ryan
Gain a new appreciation for Seattle with cartoonist Ryan as she walks the city, exploring and celebrating overlooked neighborhood places and histories.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple
Emails and school reports chronicle Bernadette’s descent into agoraphobia, fights with fellow private-school mothers, exasperated disdain for Seattle, and disappearance in this humorous novel.

Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography, by David B. Williams
From filling in the Duwamish tide flats to massively regrading Denny Hill, Williams chronicles the large-scale physical transformations that created the Seattle landscape we know today.

Find more essential Seattle reading here, and at your local library.

     ~ Linda J & Andrea G.

20 Essential Seattle Books, Part 5 – Tales of the City

Arriving at our fifth and final post suggesting twenty essential Seattle books, after posts highlighting history, race, place, and Northwest classics, we finish with a handful of novels evocative of our city and its culture.

There are several good mystery series set in Seattle, but when a fictional detective has been on our rain-soaked streets for three decades his casebook offers real perspective. Homicide detective J.P Beamont made his debut in 1985 in J.A. Jance’s Until Proven Guilty, hunting the twisted killer of a young girl while frequenting such vanished local landmarks as the Doghouse. Over twenty titles later, Beaumont still patrols Seattle’s seamy side, most recently in Dance of the Bones. (For readers who prefer a lighter touch, check out G.M. Ford’s classic Who the Hell is Wanda Fuca? starring wisecracking Seattle P.I. Leo Waterman.)

20 Essential Seattle Books, Part 4: Northwest Classics

For the fourth of our posts suggesting twenty essential books for Seattleites, having focused on history, race and place, we now attempt to suggest some writers whose work best characterizes our “regional literature.” In previous posts we’ve already mentioned Richard Hugo and Sherman Alexie, both of whose works certainly belong on this post. Here are some more Northwest classics for your shelf.

With his mischievous, playful tone, Tom Robbins has certainly helped to define our offbeat Northwest style, but when it comes to picking one book for readers new to Robbins, we’re torn. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and Another Roadside Attraction are both classic early gonzo Robbins. Then again, Jitterbug Perfume and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas are both terrific, and set right here in Seattle. In the end, we’ll go with our heart: Still Life With Woodpecker. Why? Maybe it’s the way he writes about blackberries, how they force their way into polite society, engulfing dogs and small children, entwining the legs of virgins and trying to loop themselves over passing clouds. Maybe we’re still a little sweet on the girl who gave us this book in college. Does it really matter? Read it.

20 Essential Seattle Books, Part 3: Place

Next in our ongoing series of 20 books that capture the essence of Seattle, we look at a variety of titles that capture a sense of our city and its environs. Whether you’re new in town, just passing through, or you’ve lived here all your life, these titles will enhance your awareness of and appreciation for the misty charms of this city on the Sound.

The bluest skies that you’ll ever see are in Seattle, unless of course they’re hidden by fifty shades of grey. While less extreme than many other areas of the country, our soggy maritime weather has always been a big part of our identity and outlook: not for nothing are Puget Sound natives called “mossbacks.” Given that weather forms a lion’s share of our small talk, reading Weather of the Pacific Northwest, by local climate celebrity Cliff Mass will up your game when it comes to discussing convergence zones, onshore flow, and our Seattle specialty, the “occasional sunbreak.”

Meteorology not your thing? Check out Tim Egan’s 1990 The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest for a more personal and evocative exploration of the beauty and fragility of the Northwest landscape. In vivid prose Egan etches the water-shaped, forested home looking back over a century into the past, and presciently forward to the increasing sprawl, clearcutting and traffic of the past twenty-five years. (For more particular approaches to our environs, check out Richard Morril and Michael Brown’s Seattle Geographies, David Williams’ Too High and Too Steep: Reshaping Seattle’s Topography, and Matthew Kringle’s Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle. Or for a disturbing look at what simmers beneath our city’s surface, locals are well advised to check out Sandi Doughton’s Full Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. (Long story short: have your emergency plans ready.) 

20 Essential Seattle Books, Part 2: Diversity

Here at the library, we’re often asked by both locals and newcomers, “What books are must reads for Seattleites?” While we’re not much for ‘must’ or ‘should,’ we thought we’d list twenty titles that capture essential aspects of the history and culture of this place. Not a definitive list: a jumping off place. Our first post looked at Seattle’s history, and in today’s post we revisit that history through the lens of diversity.

There are many excellent books about the Internment of Japanese Americans during the second World War, but one of the earliest – and one that holds special significance for Seattleites – is John Okada’s 1957 novel No-No Boy. After two years in an internment camp and two years in federal prison for declining military service and a loyalty oath, Ichiro Yamada returns home to Seattle to find himself alienated on all sides. For another view of experiences of Seattle’s Japanese Americans before and during the War, check out Monica Sone’s 1953 memoir Nisei Daughter.