Capitol Hill Books

As Capitol Hill Books enters its fourth decade (wow!), we’ve had a few famous visitors come by to give some celebratory cheer towards our store.

First we had Japanese monster sensation Godzilla drop by the store to roar his appreciation for great used books at affordable prices. He even had the courtesy to hold his fire breath until he was outside.

Then President Obama stopped by on his way to Hawaii to wish us another 30 years of success in the book businesses. It’s “Small businesses like you,” he read from a teleprompter that “shine a beacon of hope, guiding America to a more prosperous future.” Uh…Thanks Mr. Obama. He even let us give his cute dog Bo a cookie. Barack then bought the books “Going Rouge: An American Nightmare,” and “End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012″ in “preparation for the next election.”

Even though we get an occasional celebrity at Capitol Hill Books, we get a bigger thrill from simply seeing our customers here day in and day out. We have them to thank for the 30-year success of Capitol Hill Books and hopefully its continued success for the next 30 years.

January 1, 2010 is our exact 30th year in business. We will have a few cookies and warm stories to share if you would like to come in on that day. And of course you are welcome to come by after then too. We plan on staying here awhile.

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As you can see in this really neat “walkability” map, we are located right in the center of the most walkable area in the whole city. Pretty cool.

Denver is tied with Portland, OR as the tenth most walkable city in the country.

The score is calculated by measuring the proximity of schools, shops and restaurants. In other words, how easy it is to live a “car-lite” lifestyle.

Added to our shop’s walkability is our proximity to so many bus routes (the 0 on Broadway and 15 on Colfax are frequent and efficient, and the 2 and 7 also run directly in front of the shop).

So between public transit, walking and biking, the shop is easy to get to without having to get into a hot, dirty, sun-baked car (for cars, there is metered parking and lot next door that charges hourly).

What a pleasant surprise! 5280 Magazine came out with their Top of the Town list for 2009, and guess who the readers picked as the best used book store in Denver. That’s right, your humble Capitol Hill Books.

They noted our combination of classic used book store (dusty shelves “precariously balanced”) and digital inventory (helps bring us into the “modern era”).

I would say that most of our shelves are nailed into the wall, but I suppose they do appear a little precarious at times. Haha. But they’re totally safe! Promise. How about this, if you are crushed by a book shelf, we’ll give you 10% off your entire purchase…

The Editors’ Choice was the Denver Book Mall (32 Broadway, 303-733-3808), which really is a great store (or group of independent sellers). If you have never made it down there, be sure to check them out.

Also, if anyone else would like to give us an award, we are taking those. We can’t give trade credit for ethical reasons, but we’ll probably brag about it a bunch on our web site…

In light of Bike to Work Day June 24, we would like to talk about how our workers get to the job every day.

Of our six employees, two ride bikes (Meghan and Tom), two walk (Jae and Julio), one takes the bus (Ben) and one drives (Holly). But, hey, it’s a Prius!…

While Bike to Work Day is a great event, it’s main effect will hopefully be to show people how easy it is to get around Denver on a bicycle (or public transit and a bicycle if you are far away). The city is flat, and the drivers are (relatively) friendly towards bikers. Sure most our employees have the advantage of living closely, but it is remarkable how far you can get with just a bike without even breaking a sweat.

This article about Robert Hurst (who’s books about bicycle commuting are nearly always out of stock and on our want list) is about the same idea. Every day should be bike-to-work day!

The second part in a series of profiles about our wonderful staff. This week: Julio

A life-long Denverite, Julio can tell you where the 15 meets the 0 and where Celebrity Sports Center used to be. He has a knack of knowing lots of useless facts, which isn’t actually so useless for him since he regularly wins bar tabs at pub quizzes.

He reads a lot of very random stuff, especially science fiction and nonfiction that doesn’t involve a lot of footnotes. His favorite authors include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson,  Donna Tartt, Michael Pollan, and Orson Scott Card.

He also enjoys biking, journalism (check out his transit blog RTD Watch), gardening, trying out new foods, outdoor activities and anything involving trivia.