Left Bank Books Collective — Local services in Seattle

Was in the area looking for a bookstore and stumbled upon this one. From the outside it looked interesting but as soon as I walked in I noticed a certain pattern, palestinian and lgbtq flags and posters on the walls, all of the books available were either marxist, feminist theory or books on colonization, identity politics and other books that all had in common being grossly biased and aligned with woke ideologies. Then soon after entering a staff member handed me a box of facemasks and said that facemasks were required inside and was a little offended that I hadn’t put on a mask before entering the building and it threw me so off guard as it is july 2025 that my only reaction was saying “what? Really? Why?” and he answered me in the most sassy way saying “umm because of airborne diseases? No need to be so selfish” honestly absolute comedy and then what I thought the icing on the cake was after I walked outside was seeing the name “Left” Bank Books, which obviously the name is appropriate for this establishment that seems to be a satire of itself or woke far left ideologies, until I opened the reviews on google maps and seeing the real icing on the cake which is hundreds of bots giving the place 5 star reviews and then loads of 1 star reviews mirroring my experience of the place 😂 now honestly the book selection is one thing but what is the mask requirement about? Is it a shtick or are the owners just living on a different planet? Also always funny seeing people whose whole personality is being progressive and inclusive be so unwelcoming, rude and...

I heard many great things about LBBC, but upon coming here I was pretty disappointed to say the least.

For starters, the selection in the store was pretty lackluster; came here looking for leftist theory and there was only one bookshelf dedicated to economics/Marxist theory from obscure authors (Noam Chomsky was the only author with any recognition I could find). No Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. I understand this store has an anti-authoritarian streak (which I admire!), but it seems wrong to me to leave these authors out. Maybe all these titles were already purchased, but even then I had a good laugh at the fact that the "fat liberation" section was 3 times as extensive as the decolonial studies one.

Maybe I'm just not on the same wavelength politically as the workers, but I have to scratch my head at a store that claims to be "radical" when Lindy West titles are displayed prominently while classical socialist/anarchist thinkers are almost nowhere to be found (I was able to pick up the last copy of a Mark Fisher title, thank god).

Even though I found the selection to be kind of disappointing, the reason for my overall negative review was the atmosphere of the store/attitude of the workers. My girlfriend and I spent thirty minutes in the store and experienced ourselves and other people get consistently talked down to or flat-out ignored when asking questions.

It just sucks because I really wanted to support what I was told was a radical, worker-owned co-operative and got nothing but a prepackaged Seattle stereotype of pretentious...

Not open during business hours / A little too aggressive politically for me:

I liked this bookstore at first. I've been several times, and they are very in your face with the anarchist / revolutionary vibe. Fine, that's their right, but it's a bit of a turn off to see angry, profane messages on bookmarks and other items in tbe store. I'm aligned with their beliefs on a lot of things, but the aggressiveness of this messaging was not pleasant. I also didn't appreciate being asked to wear a mask in late winter 2023 when covid is not spiking or significant in our area. I'm all for protecting those around me from illness, but this doesn't feel necessary any more and the science backs it up. This seemed more like a political statement than a health concern at this point. Secondly, it's very hard to find the used books in the store. I only learned they sold used books by looking at the website. I've never seen anything that wasn't new in my trips to this store. Please make this more clear. Finally, I was very frustrated when I came on my lunch break to quickly pick up a book to read this afternoon only to discover that they weren't yet open even though it was during their business hours. There wasn't even an employee in the store, the lights were off, so it didn't look like they were going to be opening any time soon and I left. These things combined were pretty negative customer experiences, and even though they're a collective with "no boss," somebody needs to take some responsibility for opening the...