Butch lounges at Queen Anne's Twice Sold Tales. When the store closes, he and another cat, Sparks, will have to find a new home (Photo: Hugo Kugiya)
By Hugo Kugiya
PostGlobe
Sparks is a large, solemn male, unflappable and indifferent with jet black fur. The tabby with the boy’s name, Butch, is actually female. She tends to be aloof, but less so with men, whom she prefers over women.
Both submit agreeably to frequent petting by customers.
“If they don’t like someone, they just walk away,” said the clerk behind the counter at Twice Sold Tales.
Sparks and Butch were rescued as kittens. And for past three years, they have lived at Twice Sold Tales, the used bookstore at the corner of Queen Anne Avenue North and Mercer Street.
The store’s owner, Jamie Lutton, is selling the place. Three stores proved too much of a financial challenge in the era of internet commerce.
Cathy Goodwin lives in the neighborhood. She calls the store “an icon of the neighborhood,” which means so too are Sparks and Butch. So when the store closes, it's raising a question that goes beyond the future of independent bookstores.
What will become of the cats?
Lutton owns a store by the same name on Capitol Hill, and owns a minority stake in the Twice Told Tales in the University District.
But four cats already live in the Capitol Hill store, three in the U-District. Neither can absorb another cat, Lutton said.
Moreover, adult cats do not typically adapt well to the presence of new cats.
Prospective buyers may be interested in the store. None want the cats.
Bad move, Lutton says.
“Some customers have already told me they’re not going to shop there if the cats aren’t there,” said Lutton.
Earlier this week, Butch and Sparks, comfortable in their respective perches by the front door and atop a cardboard box in the back of the store, were blissfully unaware that they are on the verge of being displaced by the market and technology.
Lutton, 50, who started Twice Sold Tales about two decades ago, survived the advent of the big-box bookstore. The likes of Border’s and Barnes & Noble didn’t harm her business much.
Rather, it helped, supplying her with the used, raw materials that fueled her business, “pumping books into the system,” as Lutton put it. The real blow came when Amazon started selling used books online.
Customers came to the store. “People need someone like me, to hold their hand and point stuff out,” Lutton said. But then they’d leave and buy the book online.
Amazon is to Twice Sold Tales what Craigslist is to local newspapers, what Netflix is to the corner video store.
Lutton wonders what‘s next for stores like hers. “I hope there’s a place for us. We’re like for-hire librarians.”
Lutton recalled the movie, “You’ve Got Mail,” starring Meg Ryan as the owner of a small bookstore, who stepped in to help a customer in a big-box store when the clerk on duty was stumped.
A customer is trying to help find a home for the cats on Twitter and Craigslist. (Photo: Hugo Kugiya)
“Seattle is such a great place to sell books,” Lutton said. “It’s such a literate city. You can’t help notice what people read on the bus. They’re not reading Louis L’Amour. They’re reading David Eggers.”
Goodwin can’t solve the future of used bookstores. But she’s helping Lutton find homes for the cats. With no intention of irony, she placed ad on Craigslist and began spreading the word on Twitter.
“She (Lutton) doesn’t really know her way around computers,” Goodwin said.
“If you’ve been wishing for a cat to purr in your lap while you read,” her ad read, “or look over your shoulder to discuss great literature, you may be just the right owner…Naturally they're calm and get along well with people. They have beautiful manners.”
Butch was found with the rest of her litter, abandoned in a garbage dumpster, nearly starved. Ever since, she has tended to overeat. Both are expert mouse hunters, Lutton said, finding plenty of prey in the old building. Over the years, she said, the cats have more than earned their keep.
A former national reporter for Newsday and The Associated Press, journalist and author Hugo Kugiya has written about the Northwest for several publications including the Los Angeles Timesand theNew York Times. He also writes about jazz for The Seattle Times. His book, 58 Degrees North, was a finalist for the 2006 Washington State Book Award.
