Seattle Should be in the Top 10

I can't imagine why Seattle isn't in the top 10 on this list, as we still have a number of great bookstores and plenty of readers and reading groups! From Shelf Awareness for Readers:


Top 10 Cities in U.S. for Book Lovers

Livability.com's "Top 10 Cities for Book Lovers" list highlights "some of the independent bookstores that are still standing and the cities that support them. We started our search by looking at cities with either iconic bookstores, huge numbers of bookstores or emphatic bookstore supporters. You can see which stores maintain the independent spirit and the cities we deem best suited for book lovers. But one cannot live on books alone. That's why the cities we picked offer a great quality of life, plenty of entertainment and awesome outdoor activities." The top 10 are:


1. Portland, Ore.
2. Kansas City, Mo.
3. San Jose, Calif.
4. Charlottesville, Va.
5. Iowa City, Iowa
6. Traverse City, Mich.
7. Pueblo, Colo.
8. Coral Gables, Fla.
9. Spokane, Wash.
10. Charlotte, N.C.

A lovely poem by Dante Gabriel, who has the same initials that I do:
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell;
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore,
You have been mine before--
How long ago I may not know;
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall--I knew it all of yore. --Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I hope that they have this for the Nook e-reader soon, as I have a Barnes and Nobel e-reader and not an Amazon Kindle:

Borrowing Kindle Books: Seattle Libraries Beta-Lend

Some libraries in Seattle are beta testing
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz11747254
the Amazon Kindle feature that lets patrons select and place holds on
Kindle versions of books, Brier Dudley wrote in the Seattle Times,
noting that the "downside, from my perspective as a fan of public
libraries, is that the process requires you to visit Amazon.com to
borrow a book and have commercial offers interjected into the process.
But then again, you're opting to consume a public library book via the
world's largest e-commerce business, on a device optimized for selling
books."

"It's a big deal for us because so many of our patrons have purchased
Kindles, and they've been asking for the longest time," said Bill
Ptacek, director of the King County Library System, which began offering
the service Monday.

"I hope libraries are getting a deal on the service and the Kindle
editions they acquire, because Amazon will benefit from the traffic and
profiling opportunities generated by the public libraries, not to
mention the big improvement in the Kindle's utility and appeal that
library lending brings," Dudley observed.