Seattle City of Literature

Book excerpt: This bookish history of Seattle includes essays, history and personal stories from such literary luminaries as Frances McCue, Tom Robbins, Garth Stein, Rebecca Brown, Jonathan Evison, Tree Swenson, Jim Lynch, and Sonora Jha among many others. Timed with Seattle’s bid to become the second US city to receive the UNESCO designation as a City of Literature, this deeply textured anthology pays homage to the literary riches of Seattle. Strongly grounded in place, funny, moving, and illuminating, it lends itself both to a close reading and to casual browsing, as it tells the story of books, reading, writing, and publishing in one of the nation's most literary cities.