A house full of books is a dream for any bibliophile, but for Bill Wolfe, owner of Collins Books, it's reality. "We have US history and art in this room, natural history is in the kitchen, we have an Asia room, an Africa and Europe room," Wolfe explained as he walked through the house he has converted into a quaint bookstore in North Seattle. "Downstairs more are the general categories. We had a map at one point, but things change so often because we get floods of inventories in," he explained.

Steeped in history
Collins Books was around long before Wolfe and his wife took over the business in 2018. "The shop goes back to 1969, so people on the West Coast think of us when they think about anthropology or archaeology in particular," Wolfe explained. While the store specializes in nonfiction books, they still have a vast section of novels, particularly science fiction, found in the basement of the converted house.

Lewis Collins, a friend of Wolfe's, was the store's original owner. Collins specialized in sophisticated rare books and built his collection, and legacy, on ornate, used hard-cover books often donated by intellectuals and educational institutions. Donations are still one of the main ways Collins Books acquires its many rare titles.

"We get a lot of calls from retiring or downsizing professors in the area. In the last five years, we've gobbled up the inventories of the equivalent of six or seven shops," Wolfe said.

"The real game-changer a couple of years ago was that we helped the Friends of the Library get back up to speed after COVID wiped them out. They had to leave their warehouse space," Wolfe continued. The Friends of the Seattle Public Library is a nonprofit that helps provide books for teachers, educational centers, and children in need. After losing their warehouse space, the Friends needed a location to store donations.

"About a year into COVID, we agreed to partner and turn the donations on so we could be their sales infrastructure. That was a real game changer," Wolfe said. Now, Collins Books takes in hundreds of donations to help the Friends. In return, they shelve any rare or old books that may be sellable for their store.

Continuing the legacy of Lewis Collins is personal for Wolfe. The two were good friends long before they became business partners. "He had planned to pass the shop down to our family for several years. I knew him for several years before I started working with him too. When he passed away, it was just time to go, fingers crossed," Wolfe said.

The shop used to be on Capitol Hill, but Wolfe and Collins decided to move it north. "We moved up here from Capitol Hill, where the shop was for the longest time, with Lewis," Wolfe said. "He had dreamt of having the store [near] my wife's home daycare, and then us just living on the same property, so we finally found a place that would work."

Hard to find but worth the look
While Collins Books may not look like a typical bookstore on the outside, it is just as warm and inviting as any other used bookstore in the city. "We're off the beaten path, and it's tough to find. This isn't the most walkable area, but our dedicated, loyal customers know where to find us," Wolfe said. The store also has an online catalog. Buyers interested in the unique titles Wolfe carries in-store can browse through a digital version of the shop and order books to be delivered.

Although most of Collins Books' sales are online today, the experience of walking through the physical store is worth the drive. Books with aged and yellowing pages line the walls from floor to ceiling. Old globes sit stacked above a lifetime of reading materials. Walking into Collins Books feels akin to stepping into a beloved professor's office or into a story your grandparents once told. The store is a literary museum. Browsers can pick up and flip the pages of antique atlases, classic poetry, and hundreds of textbooks. For anyone looking for decorative books, Collins is a place worth checking out.

It's easy to get lost in the maze of rooms, but there is order to the chaos. Books are categorized by subject and whole rooms are dedicated to regions. Despite the organization of subjects, getting lost is the best way to find the perfect book at Collins. Stumbling into the unexpected is part of the fun.

The scope of the rare and antique literature collection sets the store apart from others in the region. "A lot of this stuff you can't find online," Wolfe explained. "A lot of things have been digitized, and you can find a copy on Google books, or you can get a print-on-demand copy, but a lot of these are not online. When you're dealing with tribal histories or local histories, like a lot of this stuff here, I doubt you'll be able to find that content anywhere else."

One of a kind
For many readers, digital copies of books aren't the same as the physical experience of turning the page. Wolfe believes the experience is heightened at Collins because his books cannot be found on the pages of the web. "You've got to find that book. You've got to have it in your hands to feel the importance of the subject matter, the tactile experience of holding it in your hands. Beyond that, when you're talking about something rare, it's a commodity. It's interesting to hold something that not many people have held before. It can be interesting, rare, but not terribly desirable, and we think those things should survive too."

While Collins does hold space for the "not terribly desirable" books of the past, the store also sees sales spike as topics trend. "A current event that influenced our sales somewhat are books on Mars exploration, given the uptick in these billionaires that are trying to get there first," Wolfe said with a laugh. "Certainly through the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement has probably helped everybody sell their African American history and literature."

Collins has lots of options for social justice and civil rights texts — these are the subjects that fascinate Wolfe the most. "My particular interest is in human rights, civil rights, and oppressed peoples of the world. Anything we see along those lines that I don't want to take home for myself that ends up here tends to be my favorite kind of work," he said.

Collins also has a robust LGBTQ+ section. "We were so grateful to be able to build one because they're harder to find in the way that we do things around here, focused on the scarce, but a couple of years ago, Gay City came in and they donated almost all of their books to the Friends of the Library. We were able to go through all of them and put this great collection together that has sold really well over the years," he said. "We still have a fair amount left, but we're always looking for more. Anything along those lines is something I would aggressively pursue when someone says they have that."

One title Wolfe is particularly fond of is Stonewall's Legacy: A Poetry Anthology, which he recommends for SGN's summer book club series. "They were published a few years ago, but it's a new copy. That's sold pretty well for us, and I think the importance of that movement is not going away. It is threatened every day, in certain places more than others," he added.

The most fascinating item in Collins Books isn't even a book — it's an antique globe of Mars. The store currently has two available in gorgeous condition. The globes, like the books, set the tone for Collins Books — rare and beautiful. Maintaining the rare book trade in Seattle is vital to Wolfe, just as it was to Collins when he first opened the store.

Supporting small bookstores
"The rare book trade in Seattle is suffering, and there's really only one other shop in western Washington that has the sort of breadth of a collection as we do," Wolfe said. "Certainly, there's a lot of shops that have nice old rare books, but the specialty in it, those shops really aren't around anymore. We feel like we're holding the torch, wanting these books to live on. It's not just about the contemporary vampire novels people like. We believe in these stories. We like books that other people don't have, that's maybe the simplest way to put it."

Supporting small independent bookstores is critical to helping shops like Collins Books stay in business, especially as big chains and online sellers like Amazon threaten their livelihood. "Bookstores don't just begin and end at Half Price Books and Elliott Bay. Those are important too, but if you have the wherewithal and the curiosity, there's great stuff all over Seattle. Sometimes you need to know where and how to look. Whether it's us or someone else, go beyond 'I get all my books from Half Price Books' or these big box stores," Wolfe said. "Look at local directories and find your independent shops in your neighborhood and support them. It's very hard to survive. It's a labor of love. I'll do it until I die, but we need support to get the word out that there are more shops."

A trip out to Collins Books is like stepping into a time machine. The discoveries are well worth the journey, and the experience of holding a unique, hundred-year-old book in your hand is truly indescribable.