Seattle was named most literate city in the country. Here's some about the study:

This study focuses on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.

Based on my perception of the city, I'm not surprised about that at all. Bookstores are pretty common, though they've been struggling lately and the city's landmark Elliott Bay Book Company is moving from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill. And many people here have graduate degrees - Seattle is a very educated city (almost to the detriment of diversity). The city also is big on libraries and overwhelmingly passed a measure in 1998 to improve all neighborhood libraries and build a new central library.