Browsers Bookshop

Four women have owned this shop in ninety years. Anna Blom opened it in Aberdeen in 1928 and moved it to Olympia in 1935, hoping to outlast the Depression. Ilene Yates, who had worked alongside her, bought it in 1968 and renamed it Browsers. Jennifer Stewart started part time in the early seventies and took it over in 1985. Andrea Griffith, a former medical librarian, bought it in 2014.

The stock is mostly used with a growing new section, plus special orders for both new and out of print titles, staff picks, and a shelf of totes, journals and candles. The trade counter runs Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday from noon to three, one box at a time, for store credit.

Beyond the shelves there is a cookbook club and a reading retreat at the Tokeland Hotel, the oldest hotel in Washington, where thirteen readers spend a weekend with fireside readings and a letter writing table.