If you've walked through Pioneer Square on First Avenue, you've probably walked by Wessel and Lieberman. (I have many times, being a particular fan of their bargain bookshelves out front.)

They've been selling rare, antiquarian, and artists' books there since 1992, but they also sell new books--hand-sewn chapbooks (in the "fine prints" section across from poetry), broadsides, art books, artists' books, and books about books--a particular interest of proprietor Michael Lieberman.

"We're book people," he says. "We want to support the physical book environment."

For an antiquarian and rare bookseller, though, Lieberman is surprisingly unsentimental about books. When asked to name his favorite book in the store, he says, "My favorite book is always the last one we sold."

Lieberman is a frequent blogger, both on the store's web site and at Book Patrol, a blog he co-writes with a bookseller from Los Angeles. And he's not anti-ebook.

"It's a complement, not a replacement," he says. "The iPod is a good way to read a book."

I asked Lieberman to pull three of the most exciting books in the store. He reluctantly allowed me to videotape him.

Here's a Washington Territory Road Guide pamphlet from 1877:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdWZPJOpUK0[/youtube]

A limited-edition catalog of a current photography show about Lake Washington:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cF6GgUq40c[/youtube]

("We do our best to support what's going on locally," says Lieberman.)

And (wow!) a first U.S. edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which I found out later is priced at $22,000):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJg0bA4mK-g[/youtube]

We then toured the store, where I learned two things about the shop that significantly enhanced my book browsing experience:

1) Those cases are open.

When you walk in the store, you see intimidating antique bookcases with glass doors, and glass cases. These are for the "nicer books" (i.e., older books, books valued at more than $150).

In "nicer fiction" cabinet near the door, I noticed a light-blue covered edition of Gertrude Stein's Geography and Plays.

"Is that a first edition?" I asked.

"I don't know," he says. "You can just take it out and look at it."

Yep. It's a first edition, second binding. And I held it in my hands. And I gently put it back.

"You can look at anything in the store," he tells me. "All the cases are open."

2) The wooden file boxes in Wessel and Lieberman are the key to all happiness in this world.

It takes some looking (I sat on the floor and pulled the boxes out), but in the "Fine Press" section under the new books I found some unique pieces going back to the'70s, by Ursula LeGuin, Joyce Carol Oates, and a 1975 chapbook edition of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf with a red construction paper cover that looks like a mimeographed school program.

For even more file box fun, look for the boxes in the back room labeled, "Denise Levertov Ephemera."

Wessel and Lieberman acquired the Northwest poet's library a few years ago, and the ephemera boxes include what's left of her chapbooks, pamphlets, and broadsides. I flipped through because I was curious, but I didn't expect to find anything really cool just sitting here in a wooden file box. There were some chapbooks from the '90s, and some interesting relics of'70s psychedelia.

Then I came across a 2x7 booklet signed by James Laughlin from the Backwoods Broadsides Chaplet Series. Then a 1967 Anselm Hollo chapbook. A few plastic sleeves back I found Charles Olson's Anecdotes from the Late War, 1957. Then Analects, translated by Ezra Pound, 1951, well-loved and well-worn. I started to feel faint.

About this time, a young guy walked up holding my camera. "Is this yours?" he asked. I'd abandoned it, along with my notebook and various postcards that Lieberman has given me about the two art book installations they currently have in the store.

I'd been in the store nearly two hours at this point. Still, I couldn't resist flipping through Things We Don't Talk About, a booklet of lists, including "Slang and Colloquialisms Which Will Not Pass Muster":

aggravating papa
ball up
big bug
bird
catch on
chew the rag

(this goes on for three pages)

I show the book to Ben, who works in the store. "I'm sorry," I say. "I know you guys see this stuff all the time." And I do feel bad bothering him, but somehow I can't help myself. "You have to look at this book."

Wessel and Lieberman is at 208 1st Avenue South between Main and Washington Streets, open Monday through Saturday, 11-6.