As I said a few days ago, the publishing business (and by "the publishing business," I mean "everybody but Borders") seems to have had a pretty strong year. But the question I've been getting the most from Stranger readers is this: How did Elliott Bay Book Company do in their first Christmas at their new Capitol Hill location?

That's a good question. So: How did Elliott Bay do over Christmas? Elliott Bay Book Company owner Peter Aaron says this Christmas was "the best ever" for the bookstore, at least as far back as 1995. (No pre-1995 records are available, though Aaron suspects that Elliott Bay had better Decembers before then, it being the time before chain booksellers and Amazon.) This means that they haven't sold this many books in 15 years. Seems like the move might've worked out.