Okay, so you know the bookstore in
Hugo, Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of
The Invention of Hugo Cabret?
You know the one I mean - the bookstore that doesn't feel like a store really, or even a library. It feels like a labyrinth of books, novels and biographies and histories and collections stacked up to the ceiling, surrounding you with a expectant sort of calm, as if each volume were patiently waiting for the right reader to come along, open them, and take them home.
That's pretty much how I feel about Powell's Books - in downtown Portland, Oregon.
There's something wonderful about so many books gathered so close together and so many different kinds - used and new, fiction and non-fiction, children's and adults. It attracts booklovers together like bees to a field of wildflowers, but gathering words instead of pollen.
It reminds me a little of
The Strand in New York's Union Square. It too makes you feel like there are more books here than you can ever shop through in a day. It too requires a map to find the section you want.
But The Strand can get so busy and crowded on weekends; you can never walk down an aisle without squeezing by another six storegoers, some of them grumpier than others. Every time I went there, I was eager to find what I wanted and get out of there.
Powell's is roomier (a whole city block!), simply by being located in a roomier city. You can shop to your heart's content.
Obviously, it's my new favorite place. I even found two copies of
Always Neverland!
The purple one, if you remember from
this post, is a galley - the kind of copy which you're really not supposed to sell, but honestly, I was glad to find it. I gave away my last galley last summer and thought I'd seen the last of them forever. It was sad to think I wouldn't be able to keep the galley of my very first book forever and ever.
But no, happily, I'm now the owner of the copy pictured above. It just reinforces my opinion that Powell's is a place as magical as Neverland.
