Top Hats and Paperbacks

The busy life of a bookseller

STORY BY SAMANTHA KLINGMAN | PHOTO BY GRACE SCHRATER 

(above) Dave Jackson owns Mt. Baker Books, located in the Bellingham Public Market. Jackson encourages his customers to bring in their old books and trade for either money or another book of similar value. The majority of his books come from customers or estates sales.

A man wears a gray-and-black top hat, smiling from ear-to-ear through his curly, red beard. He is sitting among rows of science fiction novels, historical texts and classic tales.

Mt. Baker Books owner Dave Jackson, 52, never comes to work without his famous hat, and it has become an iconic trademark of his store.

“This is the third top hat I’ve owned actually!” Jackson says laughing. “People find you easier, and most people think of Dickens and the classic Victorians.”

Although Jackson works full time at Mt. Baker Books, he also works a second full-time job at the local IHOP. He estimates that he works a total of 80 hours per week between his job as server and night supervisor at IHOP, and as the owner of Mt. Baker Books.

Jackson has not hired any other employees at his bookstore, making both jobs full-time positions, he says.

His books rest on shelves in the Bellingham Public Market near isles of organic fruits and vegetables, whole-wheat pastas and all-natural cleaning products.

Mt. Baker Books is different from most other bookstores in Bellingham, and not just because it is located inside a grocery store. Jackson lets his customers bring in their used books for cash, or gives them the option to trade for a book from his store.

The value of the used book depends on the type and condition, but Jackson loves receiving classics, northwest history books and science-fiction novels.

Sometimes it can be difficult when a customer has misconceptions about their book’s value when making a trade, Jackson says.

Many customers think that old books are more valuable, but that is not necessarily true, he says.

“If it’s grandma’s book, then they think it’s worth a lot of money,” Jackson says. “Then, I have to tell them ‘No, it’s really not; it might be worth about five bucks.’”

The majority of his books come from his customers or estate sales.

Despite the threat of E-Readers replacing printed books, independent bookstores like Jackson’s are still on the rise in the U.S., according to the American Booksellers Association.

Jackson has been in the book selling business for the majority of his life. He started as a teenager growing up in Olympia, Washington where he sold books at flea markets.

His father was a preacher, so Jackson spent a lot of his childhood reading religious texts.

“I got really curious and had a lot of questions about the Bible,” Jackson says. “It split off into studying different religions, philosophy and stuff like that.”

After moving to Bellingham about 25 years ago, Jackson took a full-time job at the local IHOP Restaurant, and eventually decided to launch a used online-bookstore with his brother-in-law 15 years ago.

In 2009, Jackson would set up a table of his used books in the Bellingham Public Market’s parking lot. Since that day, his bookstore has expanded from one six-foot table in the parking lot, to many shelves inside of the market.

In February 2015 alone, Jackson doubled his book inventory within the market and now has approximately 4,000 books for sale.

Jackson enjoys seeing what kinds of books come in to his store, and seeing a satisfied customer.

“I know that sounds nerdy, but it is really cool when they come up and say ‘I really liked that [book,]” Jackson says.

Although Jackson likes to feature a unique collection and many genres, from gardening to Christianity, he refuses to accept and sell only one type of book.

“I don’t do romance novels,” Jackson says boldly. “I always tell people if [the book] has a guy with six-packed abs on it, then I don’t want it.”

Mac Boyd, 26, one of Jackson’s regular customers and a “shift lead” at the Bellingham Public Market, was first introduced to Jackson and Mt. Baker Books when he started working at the market over a year ago.

Boyd has bought over 100 books from Jackson, and is a fan of science fiction and fantasy novels.

“I am a big J.R.R. Tolkien fan,” Boyd says.

Jackson finds a lot of J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, and Ray Bradbury books for Boyd that are otherwise generally hard to find.

Boyd’s bookshelf was empty when he first met Jackson, but now it is overflowing with books from Jackson’s store.

“[Dave] tries to get to know you, so he is not just throwing books at you that you are not interested in. I will tell him about a book six months beforehand, and he will eventually find it,” Boyd says. “He remembers all his customers; so many people come in just to talk to him and he has a lot regular customers.”

As Jackson sits among his enormous collection, his eyes scan all of his books while he speaks proudly about his long-time love of literature.

“I’m a book junkie,” Jackson says.

His store is an offshoot of his passion. It’s what he has always wanted to do, and he has no plans of leaving either of his full-time jobs behind.