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| Kim Kent | |
Drink Books, which pairs unusual reads and natural wine, will be opening a physical store in Seattle, Wash., at 5817 Phinney Ave. N., next month. The Post-Intelligencer reported that Kim Kent "found a unique way to combine the two things she loves: on November 5, she and business partner Emily Schikora plan to open the doors to their Phinney Ridge natural wine and bookstore."
Each of the approximately 40 titles in the shop comes paired with a bottle of wine. The co-owners plan to increase that collection over time, continuing from Kent's previous business, Book Cru, which she ran through Molly's Bottle Shop and through which she met Schikora, who owns the nearby business Editor Consignment.
Kent selects the books, with a focus on titles by women-identifying and nonbinary writers, works in translation and books from smaller presses, with a bent toward the strange, unconventional and linguistically driven. She then pairs each book with a wine she considers someone would want to drink while reading it.
"What's the mood of the book, the atmosphere of the book, the sensation of the book? This book is dark and brooding, so I want it with a dark and brooding wine," Kent observed.
Schikora and Kent are also planning to open for pop-ups, art shows "and when they feel safe doing so, readings," the Post-Intelligencer noted, adding that in two years the building Drink Books occupies "is slated for demolition, and the pair plan to make the most of their ephemeral space while they can."
As the Drink Books website explains: "Great books have the power to elicit an emotional response. They get to the core of who we are; they expand our awareness; they challenge us; they can make us feel seen. Books, and how we feel about them, can change over the course of our reading; they can defy our expectations and ability to say what it is and what it's doing. Natural wine often works this way too. It changes from sip to sip. It speaks. It doesn't include chemical alterations, or commercial yeasts that mask its true qualities. Wine making and writing are both processes of transformation--there are grapes and there are words and then, if we're lucky, skilled, and possess a small amount of magic, there will be wine and there will be a story."