When I moved to Portland, the first place my husband (a Portland native) took me was Powell's City of Books. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We spent hours just browsing the stacks, finding everything from first edition masterpieces to out-of-print pulp fiction. I couldn't imagine there was any book I needed that wasn't there. I still half-believe it's a parallel universe, a paradise for book-geeks like me who dream of endless shelves stocked with every book on earth.
The staff at Powell's is helpful and remarkably well-informed. Many of them seem to carry some sort of internal book database that displays both a love of reading and a love of Powell's. And if that fails them, they have access at their fingertips to the incredible Powell's system, which guides you to the precise book in a fraction of an instant.
I've also sold a few books there, and I've been doubly impressed with their buyers. They have the uber-internal book database, and I'd love to peek inside their brains to determine their incredible organization. Very imrpessive to watch them in action. And a bonus to get credits or cash for books you received or bought but don't care for.
The fact that Powell's is an independent bookstore just floors me. I'm overwhelmed every time I walk in, realizing that this is one of the best and greatest indepedent bookstores in the world. I do everything I can to keep them in business, and I take all my Portland guests to visit them too. The look of awe and delight on their faces is sort of a payback for the first time I stepped in the door. It never gets old.
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