Uniquely themed book shop

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It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you can walk into a book store, cast your eye over the aisle labels and head for the book in the genre you are after, right? Well, that was true until recently.

Rather than the tried and true categorisation by genre method, a new book shop in Seattle, Oh Hello Again, has established itself by opening as a bibliotherapy shop.

In this bookshop, books are catalogued by emotion, not genre. So picture books sit beside adult fare. Fantasy rubs shoulders with literature and manga.

It came about when the owner read the

thesis of Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin’s “The Novel Cure” and “The Story Cure” that she decided to build a whole shop around their concept of “bibliotherapy,” which posits that reading the right novel at the right time can help to console and guide people through moments of great emotional turbulence.

Seattle Times

Even the online store is grouped by topic:

From: Oh Hello Again

What do you think? Would you like to be able to find a book by the way you are feeling or by a genre you enjoy?

7 comments on “Uniquely themed book shop”

  1. Giggling Fattie

    February 11, 2021 at 11:21 pm

    This honestly would be so helpful! Sometimes (when it was allowed) I would go to the library and just try to find random books to read. If they were sorted in this way it would be easier to find something new and fitting with my mood instead of spending so much time pulling books from shelves and putting them back like a weird person 😂

    • ajblythe

      February 12, 2021 at 8:07 am

      Yeah, I think there would be times when I would want to choose the emotion. Regardless I think it would be fun to visit.

  2. Liz A.

    February 12, 2021 at 10:25 am

    I would have to be looking for books by emotion for that to work. And, sometimes, yeah, that’s good. But mostly, when I’m looking for a book, I would rather just peruse the sci-fi section.

  3. Jenny

    February 13, 2021 at 8:05 am

    I think it sounds great! My sister lives in Seattle, and the next time I visit, I will check it out. (Fingers crossed that it will still be in business at that unspecified time in the future!)

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