Pistil Books - Seed Your Head

We have postcards, blank cards, marbled paper pamphlets and more -- all made by Pistil Books staff and friends. Check it out here.

15% Off, now until April 4 on our Etsy Shop

My Lover Between the Covers Who shall be my lover?

That is the query--

Someone dashing, insightful,

Never boring or dreary.

Someone fun, with a spirit,

Alluring, compelling.

With an interesting manner,

Worthy of telling.

With fortitude, not spineless,

And easy to carry.

Someone warm for my bed,

Not vapid or hairy.

Who could it be?

Who isn’t a bore,

Whom I could meet,

At my favorite bookstore.

I know a type

Who’ll suit me just fine--

Interesting between the covers,

And knows a good wine.

Someone who’s rough, 

But clean as a whistle.

I’ll find them browsing

Down an aisle at Pistil!                                                                                   -- Sean Carlson

Valentine's Sale:  20% Off, now through Feb. 21

for all books purchased through our website.

Every wonder how people learned to identify bird songs before smart phones and the Merlin app? This is a book that is also a series of flexi records, combining the best of analog media. You wouldn't be able to carry your record player into the woods, though. Unless it was portable.

Nothing like a codpiece with a zebra stripe train to make a fashion statement!

This is just one cover from a collection of Physique Pictorial, Bob Mizer's 1950's and 1960's groundbreaking magazine of homoerotic photography and artwork, available at Pistil Books.

Pistil Books Online is now buying libraries and collections in the Seattle area.

We are buying books in the following categories: science, philosophy, art, graphics, architecture, photography, women's studies, sociology, anthropology, history, politics, sex, gender, gay and lesbian, literary criticism, linguistics, technical, environment, nature, martial arts, health and medicine, religion, metaphysics, and ethnic studies.  We are also interested in hardback classic fiction in nice cloth bindings and vintage paperbacks in great shape.

Condition is always very important. We are generally unable to buy anything with marks to the text, library marks, broken bindings, loose or missing pages or covers, water damage, mold, or odor.

How it works: Please call or email for an appointment and have at least thirty books to sell. We will evaluate your books and get back to you with an offer for the titles we are interested in within 24-48 hours. We make house calls for larger collections and estates.

[email protected]

The Children's Books on How to Use Books and Libraries was first written in the 1930's, but the (ex-library) copy I have is from 1961. I'm not sure why this book is illustrated with stick figures (budget reasons?); nice colors, though!

Anxious books worry about being mis-shelved and having broken backs.

Before there were computers, there were card catalogs. Anyone looking at this old enough to remember using those?

According to the library card in the pocket, apparently the first, last, and only time this library book on books and libraries was checked out was to Room 2 to a teacher named Skotdal.

Most of the old library books that we use have a library binding made from buckram, a stiff, durable cloth made from cotton or linen. Library buckram bindings are made in bright colors and multi-colored patterns, and are easy to wipe clean after marred by borrower's dirty hands. Often children's library books previous to the seventies had an illustration printed on the buckram cover.

These books are marked by the library with stamps, stickers, bar codes, pockets, and the like, I find these very markings and institutional traces to be charming and sometimes beautiful.

Some of the library markings that have their own special appeal are the perforated stamp, spelling out the library name in tiny holes, the stickers from the maker of library bindings - often in a metallic paper, with cool names like "Bound to Stay Bound," notices and warnings of fines to the library borrower, and instructions on the proper treatment of books.

Inside our store.

Inside our house.

Tick Tock Reverie, handmade tunnel book.