Why it belongs in ORBIS
Worker-owned anarchist collective bookstore at Seattle's Pike Place Market, operating since 1973 with no bosses or managers; stocks 10,000+ new and used radical, anti-authoritarian and independent titles.
Left Bank Books has operated as a worker-owned collective at Seattle's Pike Place Market since 1973, when a group split off from the University District's Red and Black Books to start their own store. It has no bosses or managers; decisions are made collectively at bi-monthly meetings run by consensus. For much of the 1980s and 1990s the collective also ran two related projects: AKA Books, a used bookstore in the University District, and Left Bank Distribution, a mail-order operation supplying radical books, zines and magazines. The current Pike Street store carries more than 10,000 new and used titles across nearly 70 sections, specializing in anarchist, anti-authoritarian, independent and small-press publishing.