Book Stores

Okay, I know the age of technology has made it possible to easily visit Chain Book Stores and purchase books without leaving the comfort of your home.  A few clicks of your computer mouse will have your books at your front door in a matter of days.  I buy books on line all the time.  I used to belong to three book clubs, too, but gave them up when I learned how easy it was to buy them (cheaply) sitting where I am at the moment.

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However, here in the Pacific Northwest, we have something amazing and tangible.  It is an honest to goodness Book Store.  It covers a whole city block, and you navigate through it with a color coded map.  It is amazing.  I try to include this store as part of my "Guided Tour of Portland", if my tourists have the time.  Oh, I don't mean a half hour or so...I'm talking at least a morning.  Seriously...at LEAST a morning. Yep, it's that kind of a place.

The first time I went there I was agog.  For a person who loves books, THIS was better than the Chocolate Factory, Hogwarts, and the Emerald City, all mushed together.  So, when I got a posting on my Facebook page this morning about this store, I realized I was not the only person who felt this was indeed a store extraordinaire.

The name of this store?  Powell's Books.  And this morning...this very morning, I discovered it had been named by "Yahoo! Travel" as a must see/do in their "State by State Guide to the 50 Coolest Things in America."  Seriously...this is fantastic.  My book store, my personal, magical, leather bound/paper-backed castle, made it onto the list.  Can you even fathom what an honor that is, and can you imagine the thousands of places that didn't make the list? Wow!

Now, I know I've written about this store before, and I can't guarantee I will not write about it again in the future.  I'm simply a bookworm to the nth degree, and when Powell's Books hits the 'big time' I simply have to shout, 'er, at least write about it.  I hope you will check it out for yourselves.  Take a few minutes to, at the very least, visit their web-site.

www.powells.com/portland

And, if you ever come to my neck of the woods, remember to allow yourself the luxury of spending at least a morning...a whole morning browsing this magical, fantastical, extraordinary-ical, place.

Oh, and congrats, Powell's Books...way to go!!!!!!