26 May 2007

Book Heaven

My list of "books to buy" is coming in around 200. Not quite there yet, but close. In 21 days, 20 after today, the blog stops and the road trip begins. One stop on the road trip is Powell's. The City of Portland has many charms, but Powell's is my raison d'etre for staying there. The website, of course, is for buying books, not cyber-touring the store, and it gives you no feel for the real thing. Five floors of covering an entire city block, open 365 days a year, with new, used, paper, and hardcover books together on the same shelves, Powell's is unique. You need a map. The floors are color-coded. They call themselves a "City of Books." I call it heaven.
a.d. VII Kal.Iun.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Have kept up with the blog, not with the comments -- and, as always, I do have a few, heh heh. I really liked your classification of Euripedes as noir, appropriately labelled, even if he might not have thought so as much as you do. I also have NOT received my copy of OUT OF THE GUTTER -- what's with those guys. I just returned from Texas; I am in need of pith. And you are spending more than a few hours in Powells; I have yet to see it, but I have heard tales (ho ho) for years about the iconic bookstore. Envy is not pretty, but I am most envious. When I was in graduate school in my 20s, I listed all the books I absolutely had to read before I left this mortal coil, and I had to stop at 5,700. That was before all the books since then (nearly 50 years!) had been published, so you can see my incredibly depressing dilemma: I doubt I could count that high on today's listing. So get going, M.C.; 'so many books, so little time,' is quite literally and heart-wrenchingly true! And don't forget to write; that, too, gets away too soon. NOC