Peter Miller Books

Fifty-five years ago on this date, ( Alvar Aalto’s birthday), I was the day chef at a very popular Pioneer Square restaurant on Occidental Square, Das Gasthaus. I had only been in Seattle for two months and had not the slightest notion what the weather might be.
It started to snow as we were prepping for lunch and then it got very serious about snowing. The lunch was over-packed, and people stood outside with umbrellas. Each table was served a fresh baked small loaf of bread, fresh fruit and butter, on a wooden tablet - the prep people were in overdrive. I made extra rice and chopped everything I had. The lunch was quite wonderful and festive and went on past 2:00 - a lovely, deep snow.
Owner Marvin called from an auto shop in Ballard to say he could not budge, the roads were grid locked and I would have to do dinner. I had never seen dinner at the restaurant, he said, just make something that looks like the menu.
Sure enough, by 4:30 people were coming for dinner and filled us again and stood outside again. I told Tina, the only remaining waitress, we will do steaks and we will do pasta and we will serve the bread and that is the menu. Everyone had a good time, we lost a little money on the supplies ( I used the crabmeat and the New Yorks), but it was the center of this town, this Pioneer Square. Ten days later, the temperature went to 70 degrees, we pulled the tables outside for lunch.

No one would wear this tie. Too wide at the bottom, some seeming grey cloud formation pattern but then, like a graffiti, a smiling yellow sun in the corner. Ah, a Fornasetti, for this last day of contentious, stern January, when the wind has suddenly come to blow the old frost sets off for a moment and get in new air, moisture, new days. Then you can wear it.

A book signing and party for Shopkeeping

First day of the new moon, May 8th

We received a box this morning from the University of Georgia Press, reminding me, in clearest terms, how sweet the details of the book business can often be. There are many ways to make a living and many ways to have a life. Salut, to books, and the people that hold books so closely.

A pre-lecture glass of wine. March 2, Thursday

Come by the bookshop at 4:PM tomorrow afternoon and have a glass of wine with Marlon Blackwell. Like tailgating, before the game. Having a cocktail.

You can grab a signed copy of his book Radical Practice and then get on up to the downtown Seattle Library for his lecture at 6:30. We will be here until 5:30, and then we are hustling on up to the Library. A big, busy fun night, Marlon Blackwell time.

We will also have books at the library in case you miss us here at the shop. See you here and for sure, see you there.

There are sexier lectures than military installations all over the world and gentler siren calls than public space and security regimes, there are better cocktails than the toxic ones of logistics and humanitarianism and there are easier hopes than the future of military urbanism but those are the truths and these two quite brilliantly know these terms and know these interdependences. It will be a great treat and a great honor to have them. Get thee to the library and let us have cocktails with Ersela and Stephen!

Next Thursday, November 17, we are going across town to the Fremont District, to have an early Thursday evening event with Celia Barber at her perfect wine shop, Imperfetta.

We will start about 5:30 PM - Celia will choose our glasses of wine and talk about them. I will make some things that we can eat, before any dinner, things that love wine and talk and coming holidays. I will cook and talk about chanterelles, and chives and goat cheese and naan. How they work, what they have. Celia loved the Louis Kahn notion, "what does a brick say."

This will be our first try with such a salon. I think it will be great. Come, if you can.

Monday, the last of an October that had its sweet hands full. And Halloween to boot.

One of my favorite ties, a Fornasetti, from the early 1990s, the wonderful Italian Design Company. It had started in Milano, in 1940, by Piero Fornasetti and soon paired with Gio Ponti and opened as the Atelier Fornasetti. Piero chose as his iconic image the face of Lina Cavalieri, which he presented in four hundred variations, always looking directly forward. Or looking at someone about to arrive by your left shoulder. The muse with a thousand faces.

By the 1960s, the sense for such decoration had changed and Fornasetti was barely mentioned. But then came the 90s, and with fashion, came Fornasetti, creating product lines, clothing and ties. The very world of Fornasetti opened into the burst of color of the new century. There are Fornasetti shops in Paris and Milan and London, designs for opera, and full exhibits. all over the world. My daughter excitedly texted me from Stockholm, "I saw the most remarkable design show today out at the Artipelag, you would have loved it." Generations, Fornasetti shall now be here for all of them.

Happy Halloween
Fornasetti's birthday, November 10th.

No one cares about grown ups, why should they? But dinosaurs, now there is a real grown up. Gabrielle Balkan and her 10 record-breaking prehistoric animals have just arrived.

No one cares about grown ups, why should they? But dinosaurs, now there is a real grown up. Gabrielle Balkan and her 10 record -breaking prehistoric animals have just arrived.

Not knowing what phase the moon is in is like getting dressed without looking outside.

We have a few moon calendars left, $20 for the big ones, the Lunario from Italy and phases of the moon from MoMA and $10 for the skinny one, also from Italy. Available in the shop and to ship, call us for best shipping rate.