You have to admit, there’s something wonderful about walking into a small local bookstore with a hand curated selection that is simply delightful. And that’s why I love Indie Bookstore Day, it gives you a reason to go out of your way and visit some new stores you maybe weren’t familiar with before. That’s also why I love the comic book passport for Emerald City ComiCon. Well…anything where I can gather stamps and there are prizes, I’m absolutely in, especially when we budget to buy books!

Of course, what would this whole *gestures outside* be without a hitch in the giddyap? Last year, we restricted our visiting to just one new shop: Annie Carl’s Neverending Bookshop. Annie and I hit it off like gas and a match and we’ve not stopped talking since. She’s my go-to for amazeballs books and we’ve recently started talking about a super-secret hush-hush project we’re going in on together. This year, at least for the Seattle challenge, it’s gone virtual! Yeah, I love the actual going to the store, but with the advent of Bookshop.org booksellers can create those wonderfully curated lists and still reap the benefit of sales even while you’re buying your books online. Which means: the challenge is back on!

Seattle’s franchise of Indie Bookstore Day laid out the gauntlet to see who could complete a 10-10-10 challenge. Buy 10 books, from 10 different local bookstores, over the course of 10 days, turn in your receipts, and get a free tote bag! Being ever the over-achiever with a LONG list of books I want to buy, I dove right in and wrapped it up in one long 3 hour internet dive. Because, of course, I’m not going to all these stores’ websites WITHOUT checking out their curated lists. Which is where I pulled seven of my ten titles from, I might add. Well, from Annie’s lists for the Neverending Bookshop and from Ada’s Technical Books sci-fi and fantasy section mostly.

So who were my 10-10 in 1 picks you ask? I thought you’d never get there!

• Ada’s Technical Books where I bought Domesticating Dragons
• Eagle Harbor Book Co. where I bought Cybertext (this relates to that super secret project with Annie!)
• Edmonds Bookshop where I bought House in the Cerulean Sea (I’ve had FIVE people recommend this one to me)
• Elliot Bay Book Company where I bought Gods of Jade and Shadow
• Island Books where I bought Induction (the one by Teshelle Combs, because I am learning to write speculative poetry)
• Neverending Bookshop where I bought The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry
• Phinney Books where I bought Remote Control (I do love me some Nnedi Okorafor)
• Queen Anne Book Company where I bought Unnatural Magic
• Third Place Books where I bought Paprika (the one by Yatsuka Tsutsui)
• aaaand University Bookstore where I bought The Black God’s Drum

I tried to focus on books I wanted to learn from or women creators or creators of color, but added a few others on just because they looked like too much fun not to. And now I need to finish the three books I’m in the middle of at the moment before these start arriving! BTWs, one of those is Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse, who is my new favorite, so check her out!