"Seattle's Best Dive Bars" author Mike Seely at Ravenna Third Place

"Seattle's Best Dive Bars"

Seattle Weekly Managing Editor Mike Seely's book "Seattle's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the Emerald City," reads like a who's-who to many of the city's most notorious watering holes.

Readers are invited to warm to the dive's dubious charm by Seely's honest and witty descriptions of places like Dante's ("When one of America's best looking serial killers is said to have seduced his first victim at your bar many years ago, you can either embrace your notoriety or close your doors for good.

Dante's has shrewdly chosen the former approach"), Ozzie's ("The transformation of Ozzie's from a cavernous dive bar to a hotspot for Greek system hookups is one of the more phenomenal in Seattle nightlife history") and Nite Lite ("Drinking at the Nite Lite, with its fondness for formica, peculiar furniture, and bright little lights, is like drinking in Pee-Wee's Playhouse").

Bars are grouped by neighborhood, and diviness is rated with — what else? — foaming mugs of Rainier.

Seely will be reading and discussing the book at 7 tonight at Third Place Books in Ravenna, 6504 20th Ave. N.E., Seattle. As Seely notes, a post-reading stop at the Vios pub under the bookstore is only fitting (206-525-2347, www.ravennathirdplace.com or http://seattleweekly.com/divebars).

Blythe Lawrence, Seattle Times staff