There is a bookstore in Portland called Powell's. It's got a large selection of very little. There may be 3-4 books on any given subject, but they cover a lot of subjects. It's 5 floors high, and a city block wide. The bottom floor has 2-3 coffee shops, and the rest is books. The prices are way too high, and I have never found a comfortable chair. I think it represents Portland perfectly.
Did I mention the elevator has doors for each floor, so you never know which one will open up?
Gonna have to disagree--I love Powell's! Last time I was there I got an out of print Russian cookbook, a handful of oldschool Caldecott and Newberry Award winners from before the 1980s/90s when awards actually meant something (today these awards are basically a participation trophy for being on the progressive stack), and some foreign language books that are very hard to get in the US.
It's a great pace for general searching, but specifics can get annoying. I went looking for videogame history and found 3 books. Car design had a book. The comics selection was nice though.
There is a bookstore in Portland called Powell's. It's got a large selection of very little. There may be 3-4 books on any given subject, but they cover a lot of subjects. It's 5 floors high, and a city block wide. The bottom floor has 2-3 coffee shops, and the rest is books. The prices are way too high, and I have never found a comfortable chair. I think it represents Portland perfectly.
Did I mention the elevator has doors for each floor, so you never know which one will open up?
Gonna have to disagree--I love Powell's! Last time I was there I got an out of print Russian cookbook, a handful of oldschool Caldecott and Newberry Award winners from before the 1980s/90s when awards actually meant something (today these awards are basically a participation trophy for being on the progressive stack), and some foreign language books that are very hard to get in the US.
This was probably 7-8 years ago.
It's a great pace for general searching, but specifics can get annoying. I went looking for videogame history and found 3 books. Car design had a book. The comics selection was nice though.