Arianna Eiler told me as we started our interview, “Just a second. I have to shelve some rhododendrons.” As we wound our way back to the shelves of different flower species, we passed landscaping and science, with stories about horses and global mythology already fading into the background. Up ahead were car repair manuals, stamp collections, and the exploits of Buffalo Bill Cody and Lewis and Clark.
Eiler started working at The Tacoma Book Center three months ago and admitted she’s still finding new subsections amongst the stacks. During the first two weeks of work, she walked each row with a pen and paper, writing down each area and getting a feel for the labyrinthine layout. This epic quest is unsurprising, considering that she works in what has been billed as “Washington’s Largest Used Bookstore.”
A Collection of Collections
In the late 1980s, this palace of words was part of a classic Tacoma story with an old, historic building waiting for new life. It had been a grocery store, a dairy, and a union hall before Dave Killian and his co-founder, Larry Jezek, singled it out as a perfect home for their ever-growing inventory of books. They had started business in Seattle, then moved down to Grit City for a chance to keep expanding. And from 1987 onwards, that’s precisely what they did.
The eclectic inventory has always been driven by discovery and an element of chance. As Killian put it, “You start with whatever you can get.” For years, this meant perusing library and estate sales, carrying off a mixture of popular items and funkier finds. While the pandemic changed this system, there is still a personal element. Nowadays, the bulk of the inventory comes straight through the door, from widows dropping off their late husbands’ thousands of volumes to casual readers looking to offload some extra volumes.
Navigating The Tacoma Book Center
The result is a tremendous array of stories, how-to guides, histories, and rare finds, all of which are best explored slowly and at length. Start at the ever-popular 25-cent carts outside the front door, whose shelves are happily picked over from the minute the shop opens. Take some time to look at the shelves towards the ceiling, where you’ll find richly colored antique books, some in such condition that they might as well have been printed yesterday. Spend some more time wandering around, and you’ll come across submarines and comic books, manuals on taekwondo and witchcraft, and maybe a childhood favorite or two.
Unsurprisingly, the store boasts an impressive array of books covering local and state history. Customers drop by asking about DVD copies of “Young Frankenstein,” books about Mozart, or copies of “The Walking Dead.” One of the more recent works to be cataloged had the somewhat dubious title, “Nuclear War: What’s In It For You?” You may not find it all here, but you’ll always find something.
Of course, such a treasure trove attracts plenty of regulars but also buyers on a mission. Eiler recalled one customer who was able to complete their Nancy Drew collection after 45 years of searching and a youngster who walked out with an armload of books about geckos in hopes of convincing their parents to get them a new pet. “That’s part of what makes the job so rewarding,” she says.
More Ways to Explore The Tacoma Book Center
Of course, the physical space is the huge draw here, but the shop has always been with the times and occasionally well ahead of them. In the late 1990s, the owners saw the potential for online selling, and they’ve continued to grow with the times, running a brisk business on Amazon and AbeBooks.
But there is still something valuable in visiting the store itself, getting joyfully lost in the sheer breadth and depth of what’s on offer. With roughly half a million books in the stacks, it’s well worth just wandering and letting serendipity take over, igniting new ideas and finding old paperback friends.
As we navigated the multicolored maze of words, Elier put it best: “This store will never be a finished product.” And that is a story as valuable as any on the shelf.
The Tacoma Book Center is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day of the week except for Sunday, when it operates from noon to 5 p.m.
The Tacoma Book Center
324 E 26th Street, Tacoma
253.572.8248