It can be hard not to feel the vibrations of anarchy coursing through the underbelly of the city when walking the streets of Pike Place Market. Along with the crowds, the noise, and the ever-present smell of fresh fish, a surge of energy and excitement rises into the air, and radical ideas seem a little more attainable.

This is the appeal of Left Bank Books, a collectively owned bookstore situated in the very center of the action of Pike Place. The store promotes an anticapitalist agenda while simultaneously existing in one of the most bustling commercial sites in the Pacific Northwest.

"There isn't, like, 'an owner,' so there is a smaller collective of us who kind of manage the ordering and business aspects of it," explained Quinn, a member of the collective, who helps run the store. He, along with several others, orders new items, manages used books coming in, and helps to make financial decisions.

As the books on the shelves reflect the unique minds of the collective that runs Left Bank, the store has become known for its Queer influences. "A large portion of the collective of Left Bank is Queer and Trans," said Quinn as he showed me to the Queer, Trans, and gender studies section. "It's been cool, because there's been more and more... we can order. A lot more books on Queer and Trans people of color. A lot more Trans fiction... I feel like having a lot more of that stuff, and being visibly Queer ourselves and posting stuff on our Instagram brings in a lot more people who are excited about those books."

While the store does have a Queer and Trans section, fiction featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes can be found on just about any shelf and have also been some of the best sellers of the summer.

"It's been a very busy summer for us," said Quinn. "There's this book that's been very popular called The House on the Cerulean Sea, [as well as] The Seven Husbands of Evelyne Hugo... Mutual Aid by Dean Spade has been flying off the shelves for the last few months..."

Still, he added "we tend to carry a lot more literary fiction, which isn't everyone's thing,"

Anarchist elements
Despite Left Bank's location and dedication to shelving LGBTQ+ titles, what makes the store most unique is its anarchist elements.

"To me the thing that's most explicitly anarchist about Left Bank is the fact that we are worker owned, we don't have a boss, and we make decisions collectively, on our own," said Quinn. "We are trying to actualize our political values and see how that works."

Left Bank has a unique history in Seattle, having opened in 1973 as an offshoot of another collectively owned bookstore in Capitol Hill, Red and Black Books. "People wanted a bookstore that was more explicitly anarchist, so it's been a varying cast of people over the years," said Quinn. The store has lived up to those desires, giving the people the anarchy they wanted.

"We're a bookstore [that has] an anarchism section, [whereas] most stores don't," he added. "A lot of times people think we're a communist bookstore or a liberal bookstore or something else. We do carry political books that aren't specifically anarchist, because we do think it's good to carry other stuff as well, but authoritative-state stuff we don't carry. We don't carry Lenin, we don't carry Stalin, we don't carry Mao. Marx we do actually carry, because... it is influential, and I think it's good to know. It's influenced a lot of left and radical circles for a long time...

"We [also] have our 'Nobody for President' T-shirts that we print every election year."

Left Bank shows that anarchy can work in practice, sharing books and theories that the store has based its successful model on for decades. While some may see that as radical, the members of the collective at Left Bank are quick to remind people that "radical" doesn't mean bad; it simply means different.

The store has been inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community since its opening, another stance that was once seen as "radical" to the public. "There's been a number of Queer and Trans people that have worked here over the years," said Quinn. "I've only been here for the last ten years, but there's pictures from the nineties of Left Bank taking part in Pride back before it was so corporate. I think it in a lot of ways has been a space that has... valued people with those identities for a long time."

"It's a space with a lot of history and it has a lot of intentionality," he added. "Something that has always been [important to] Left Bank is to be a place to have conversations, either in their heads or with other people, so they come in and they find something, and it makes them think. So, I think that is definitely what we're about. You come in here and you find something you might not find somewhere else.

"Yeah, we have a lot of mainstream stuff, but we also have things that are very niche that you might not find somewhere else. Also, it's a small space, it's kind of cozy, eclectic, and odd."

For anyone who is interested in literature that promotes different theories and new ways of thinking about society and politics, head on down to Left Bank Book Collective. It's worth braving the crowds for.

Left Bank Books Collective is located at 92 Pike Street #B and is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.