Karl Ove Knausgard, Geoff Dyer, and David Shields inside Elliott Bay Books on the same night. Credit: KAREN MAEDA ALLMAN/ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY
Karl Ove Knausgard, Geoff Dyer, and David Shields inside Elliott Bay Books on the same night.
Karl Ove Knausgaard, Geoff Dyer, and David Shields inside Elliott Bay Books. KAREN MAEDA ALLMAN/ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY

Independent bookstores are the best. You never know when you’re going to have a profound experience browsing the shelves, an encounter with a famous writer, or an unexpected flirtation with someone who has the same taste in books as you do.

On April 29, nineteen Seattle-area bookstores are participating in Independent Bookstore Day. If you visit all of them and get your Indie Bookstore Challenge passport stamped at each, you get 25 percent off at all those stores for a year.

Two years ago, 42 people completed the challenge; last year, 120 people did; this year, maybe you?

Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer...