As I first read on Lisa Gold’s delightful blog, Queen Anne’s Abraxus Books will be closing by February 12th. Abraxus was one of the finer used bookstores in town, packed with what feels like miles of rambling shelves and all manner of weirdness hiding in corners around the shop.

According to Abraxus’s Facebook page, everything in the store is now 50% off. If you haven’t visited Abraxus yet, you should make it a point to stop in this weekend. I guarantee you’ll find something weird and wonderful. Lower Queen Anne is still home to a very good used bookstore: Mercer Street Books opened about a year ago. And, of course, upper Queen Anne is still home to Queen Anne Books, which carries a strong, small selection of new books.

6 replies on “Abraxus Books Is Closing”

  2. i got some wonderful old books at abraxus that turned out to be worth a lot more than i paid for them…plus, it’s named after my favorite demon. sad, sad!

  4. Oh, for chrissakes, Will, you’ve never been in a bookstore in your life. Who are you trying to fool?

    The problem with Abraxus for me was a common one with used bookstores: insufficient turnover of stock. I went there a few times when they were in the old Ballard Library building, which was fabulous, but once I’d cleaned them out of things I was interested in repeat visits were a disappointment. Not enough good new stock coming in.

    For all the jibber-jabber about how “literate” Seattle is, there just aren’t enough good books in Seattle to support the number of used stores we have. In addition, there is an overwhelming glut of mediocre or worse books clogging up the used pipeline, which is a problem for every store. There was an interesting article in the paper the other day about a company that diverts a tiny portion of the avalanche that Value Village sends to be pulped, pallets and pallets of them every day.

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