Book city!
May 12, 2008 by thisredhead
We Seattlites do read a lot. I think there’s several reasons behind this:
- We have an excellent library system.
- We have a lot of bookstores. (Seriously, it’s very bad. I used to be a cook at a bar. Almost all of my tips went to books. Yep, I’m a geek.)
- We have weather conducive to reading. Lots of times it is drizzly and all you want to do is curl up with a good book and come coffee, tea, or hot cocoa. (Mmm… hot cocoa.)
- We have a lot of smart people and a lot of geeks. This is more influential than you might think. We have book geeks, computer geeks, gaming geeks… so many geeks. And guess what? Most of them read regularly.
- We have a pretty good transit system. I see a lot of people who, in other places, might be driving. But here, they’re on the bus, peacefully reading. (Any ideas on how to avoid motion sickness from reading on the bus? I do it until I know I’m about to get really ill, then I stop. It’s annoying.)
- We are a pretty solitary bunch. An article and a seven-minute documentary about “The Seattle Freeze”.
It all leads to a bookish culture, I think.
I grew up in Seattle and i have to agree on all points! I’m bookish myself, friendly & helpful (my husb on the other hand, from San Francisco, doesn’t like to accept/ask help of neighbors) but hard to get to know, or make close friends. Always thought it was just me! Now I know I’m just like all the other Seattleites!
[...] This Redhead Reads wrote an interesting post today on Book city!Here’s a quick excerptWe have an excellent library system. We have a lot of bookstores. (Seriously, it’s very bad. I used to be a cook at a bar. Almost all of my tips went to books. Yep, I’m a geek…. [...]
Ha ha–you’re in good company–lots of geeks here.
@jeane: It’s definitely not just you!!
@trish: Most of my favorite people are geeks, so it works out well.