Powell’s Books City of Books

 

Powell's: The literature section where Dickens is located

Bookstores are where our mental journeys begin. There is a symbiotic connection between books and travel – they feed one another. We read about where we are going, or where we cannot go, take books along when we travel, then journal and write while we are away.

It is an iconic bookstore, a quasi-religious shrine for booklovers. Powell’s is a must-see experience when in Portland. In graduate school, Powell’s was an online resource for hard to find, out of print texts that fueled one’s imagination. Part of that search was premised on the idea that there was that one book that would solve the research problem, it would be the answer we were looking for. Perhaps I have become jaded, or less naïve, but I am not looking for that one single book.

Watching other people in Powell’s looking for that book might be as fun as shopping for ourselves. I overheard a conversation between a middle-aged woman and her father, who had an armful of books, “Dad, would you like to have a coffee?” “I am not quite done yet.” “That’s okay. We can have a coffee with everyone, then afterwards we will let them go, and you can look some more.” In the cooking section, I observed a twenty-something couple studiously transfixed by the books, located in a locked bookshelf with glass doors that constituted the cooking with marijuana section. In the sci-fi and fantasy section, the clothes worn by patrons were even better than the books.

Powell’s is so large that it is difficult to know how to tackle it. I was not even sure what I was looking for when I went in. At first there was a temptation to add to my Dickens collection, although there was nothing in the section that was unique enough or unavailable elsewhere. I wandered through the hiking and nature section, but it was primarily focused on the Pacific Northwest. Eventually, I was entranced with the travel section. I leafed through a couple of books and guides to El Camino de San Sebastian, because we have friends who will hike it this summer. But it was the travel writing that was beckoning. I walked out with two books about Ireland, probably not a surprise to anyone.