The Bookseller & Gabo

Pierre Clementi is reading a book.

R.I.P David Ishii – Seattle bookseller

Longtime bookseller David Ishii was quite a story himself
David Ishii, whose secondhand bookstore was a fixture of the Pioneer Square neighborhood from 1972 to 2005, died Thursday at the age of 76.

Read more here on David Ishii

When David was born at Swedish Hospital in 1935, his mother died delivering him. With four other children at home, two daughters living with relatives in Japan, himself suffering from cancer and about to travel to Japan, Robbie Ishii was overwhelmed and decided to board the new baby at Swedish until he could sort things out. Incredibly, the arrangement was to last five years — the first three of which David spent living at the hospital, the last two largely with a Vashon Island family related to one of the nurses, Ruth Ulleland. “I was brought up by Norwegians,” David Ishii says now. “Boy, that was really something.”

Thanks to Barbara McDonald for the two links above.

Happy birthday Gabo (via)

He is 85 years old (LA Times)

Garcia Marquez goes shopping

Gabo and Wes Montgomery both were born on March 6.