A Store That Speaks Volumes -- The Couth Buzzard On Phinney Ridge Is A Last Resort For Used Books

The coffee is brewed, the door unlocked and manager Bill Brown is telling a woman on the phone that he will indeed take old reference books at The Couth Buzzard, a Phinney Ridge used-book store that is Seattle, chapter and verse.

No one is playing the old piano yet, but customer Jim Flack has sunk into the marshmallow couch to peruse his $4 copy of an "Incident at Exeter," a UFO book that fascinated him 25 years ago when last he found a copy.

Actually, he's waiting for his fiancee, DeAnn Rossetti, a true "Buzzardite" who has launched into the reasons she thinks of The Couth Buzzard, Phinney Ridge and Seattle as home.

"There are 350 bookstores in this town," said Rossetti, who moved here from Florida when she heard that Seattle was such a "literate city" with speciality stores for books on plays, cinema, poetry.

"Then there are places like this, sort of eclectic stores that have little bits of everything in little nooks and crannies."

Of the 20 or more used-book stores Rossetti and Flack have toured - that leaves them more than 80 to go within reach of the Seattle phone book - all have their own identity, but none has quite the ambiance of The Couth Buzzard, in part because of the sense of community in Phinney Ridge, said Rossetti.

Clerks at shopping-mall bookstores look at her and say, "John Gardner who?" or "I'm sorry, that's out of print," or they try to push hardbacks. In contrast, one of the Couth Buzzard owners, Marilyn Stauter, has turned Rossetti on to some of her favorite authors and Rossetti can walk out with a "bag full of books for $10."

A browser's place

People are encouraged to browse. Besides the couch, there are chairs at the end of each aisle. Customers lost in thought look like people trying to sleep on airplanes as they lean this way and that against the bookshelves to get comfortable enough to stand for another chapter.

Something brings people through the door in a slightly altered state of mind. They are willing to play, or at least exchange bon mots.

Maybe it's the signs outside that set them up. There's a fake bookshelf painted onto the outside wall that features "To Grill a Mockingbird," "Huckleberry Swede," "Brittle Women," and "Oh, To Be Jung Again."

Stuck inside among the classics and bestsellers, some of the titles aren't that much different. "Driving Your Own Karma, the Swami Beyondananda's Tour Guide to Enlightenment." "Linda Lovelace: Ordeal." "The Unauthorized Biography of the Bee Gees."

When Brown, the manager, looks up from his chess game at the counter to acknowledge a customer, he stumbles over his usual offer of "If I can help you find a book" but keeps riding the wave of the turned-around thought.

"If I can help a book find you, just tell me and I'll let it know."

To another customer, he says: "It's in the C Section, which is quite a complicated medical procedure."

A generous credit policy

The woman who called earlier with the reference books arrives with three boxes of Scientology Technical Bulletins.

Brown doesn't know the worth of the huge books, if any, but he promises her credit in trade. The store's policy is generous by used-book store standards. Customers get credit for half the price the store marks on the book. Then, when customers buy a fresh book, they pay for half of it with cash and deduct half of it from their credit.

"You are now among the credit-affluent," Brown says to one customer. "How does it feel?"

"Forty-eight dollars," she echoes back. "I could really go to town if I could find something here I wanted."

When Brown begins stacking the Scientology books on the couch, it's a contest whether the books or the couch puff up the most dust. He predicts they're still in print and sell for more than $100 apiece.

Sure enough, his reference book (bought used, of course) says they are selling for $175 new.

"That's more than $3,000 worth of books," he said.

That's what they sell for, but what can he sell them for?

He calls the local Scientology office and is told that yes, the books will sell, but the best place for them is on The Buzzard's bookshelves. They don't want them, either!

He calls a friend at Shorey Book Store, the king of used-book stores in this town. "Worth $175 new," Brown says. "Still in print!" Shorey's wasn't born yesterday. They have an identical set; have had for two years.

He tries a new technique.

"You're here for the Scientology books," he says to the next customer through the door.

"I don't think so," said the customer.

He tries to make a package deal with another customer at the counter.

"Are you sure you don't want the Scientology books?"

The customer looks warily at the stack on the couch and volleys back Brown's deadpan offer: "Everything that's out there, I've got."

Toward the end of the day, Brown is still predicting he'll get $500 for the books - somehow, somewhere - and so he marks $250 worth of credit in the account book for the woman who brought them in.

Brown has so many books at home himself, he says, that if he didn't already live in a basement apartment he'd live in the basement no matter where he was, forced down by the weight of the books.

He describes himself as a "recovering accountant."

After giving up his high-pressure job, he worked as a volunteer at The Couth Buzzard stocking shelves for book credit. He was asked to work a day a week for pay, then full time, then last year as manager.

What's an 80 percent pay cut for a job you love? he shrugs.

Owners Stauter and Gerry Lovchik have lately shifted their energy to a new Couth Buzzard opening in Issaquah, which pretty much gives Brown free rein at Phinney Ridge.

All of the employees are former volunteers. Karen Schneider-Chen, who now works for pay a day or two a week, knew she was in the right place when she watched a child start to put a book back because her mother couldn't afford it.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Up at the counter, Brown rang a bell to announce that the child had just won the Bonus Book award.

"I don't know if they make any money here," said Renee Ecklund, who owns Spencer and Company Affordable Antiques across the street. "They love books, so they love giving books away to people."

Boxes of books are stacked on the front tables, in the back room, on the couch. Some customers say the store never met a book it didn't like (1985 Buyer's Guide, 1965 Foder Guide to France . . .).

"These books - I wouldn't want to read them," said Karin Secrest, looking through the box of books she brought in for a friend who moved. "Why would anyone pay for them?"

Brown found enough in her boxes to trade credit, but he insists he has learned to discriminate and has trimmed the inventory down from 100,000 to maybe 80,000 books.

Owner Lovell is the one who "can't tolerate the idea of doing away with a book," said Brown. "We're sort of the last resort for most of these books."

Absolutely unsalable books go to prisons or the recycler. Books that still have a slight pulse go in the discount book bin out front.

"How much for a book in the bin?" asked a man, holding open the outside door.

"Fifty cents outside," said Brown, "or less when they're wet."

"It's not wet, it's cold," said the customer.

"Cold is 25 cents," said Brown.

"Does your stock turn over?" asked a customer.

"It comes in, it goes out," said Brown. "Some stay here forever."

Michael Rizzo, who is waiting for a teaching job to start, comes in regularly to play chess with Brown. Since Rizzo is debating whether to work as a bartender at night to help pay his bills, Brown has found two bartending books for Rizzo's consideration.

"I'll have a Groovy Cooler, please," Rizzo said, mocking the book that was printed in 1973.

Under the counter are "Modern Firsts," first editions of popular books by P.D. James, Dick Francis and others. They sell for a relative premium, although the highest-priced book in the store is a Walt Disney first edition for $150.

A comment that many of the books are good enough to give away as gifts starts a discussion about why people buy used books.

This is Phinney Ridge, said a customer, where recycling is a way of life. This is Seattle, where bookshelves are the first item to go at garage sales.

People read too slowly for library books or they lose them or they get there and there's only one copy and it's gone. New books are printed on thinner paper with ink that comes off on the reader's hand.

Used textbooks have notes written in the margin, said customer Flack, who is studying Japanese. "Someone has done your homework for you."

In addition, said customer Rossetti, there's the exploration.

"You feel like Lewis and Clark."

Although stores like The Couth Buzzard do get new books or next-to-new books, there's an unwritten rule, said Brown, that if you just have to have a current book, you won't find it on a used-book shelf until three weeks after you buy it new.

"Now," said Brown, "you were interested in those Scientology books, weren't you?"