Adventure Time: Amazon Books

I've decided I need a new segment on The Pemberley Reader! This is going to be called Adventure Time, and it's going to be about different bookstores or fun, book-related places and events that I go and explore. Living in Seattle during the school year, I get plenty of opportunity to check out cool bookstores and events. I don't feel like I take full advantage of this, however. I think having this segment will help me want to do more and start writing about it. So, without further ado, here is my first Adventure Time:

Amazon Books

Address: 4601 26th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105

Amazon decided to open an actual, physical store, and it is amazing. The store is in UVillage, a cool outdoor shopping mall in Seattle. There is a free parking garage right across from the store, which is great for a poor college student wanting to spend all her money on books. I went with some of my roommates a few weeks ago and made sure to take a lot of pictures, because this is currently Amazon's only physical store.

The coolest thing about this store is that the prices are all the same as Amazon's online prices. Basically, you get the perks of buying books online (aka reduced prices), but also with the perks of going to an actual physical bookstore (aka physical books you can smell and touch). It's amazing. And you get to check the price by either using the Amazon app on your phone, or by scanning the item on the cool scanners located throughout the store.

They also had an area in the middle with all of their electronics that they sell. Most of it consists of the different kinds of kindles, the cases for them, etc. You can go up and play around with all the different kinds that they have though. It's sort of like going to the Apple store to play with iPads. There are pre-downloaded books and apps so that you can mess around with them. They had two big televisions that kids were sitting at the whole time playing games on. I think you can buy the remote and adaptor that was allowing the games on the television, but I'm not sure what they are.

Back to books, though. That's what truly matters.

The set up is pretty cool, with all of the books facing out towards the shopper instead of having their spines out. This made for a new shopping experience. This may be something other, perhaps small bookstores do, but I've never been to a store that's done this so I thought it was neat.

They had a fairly good selection for each section of the store. It definitely is a small store, so some sections were smaller than I would have preferred. The cool thing about the store, though, is that it reflects what's popular online. So they are selling their most popular newly released books mixed in with the most popular classics and older books. So right next to a copy of Pride and Prejudice is the newest New York Times Bestseller.

There are ups (The cool space and prices.) and down sides (They might not have the exact book you want.), but overall, this is definitely an awesome book experience, and I'll be going again soon. If you are ever in Seattle, I highly suggest going. Even if you end up not liking it, which I'm pretty sure you will, you can say that you've been to Amazon's first official store!

Hopefully this store sticks around for a while, and seeing how its Amazon, it seems likely! Thanks for joining me on this Adventure Time!

Your Pemberley Reader,
Acacia