A Public Service Announcement! ;)

A Public Service Announcement! ;)

Monday, October 13, 2008

Powell's City of Books (Portland, Oregon)

This weekend I had a dream come true, literally. For years now, I've had a recurring dream where I visit the largest bookstore in the world. Stacks are stories high, the ladders are enormous, and long velvet drapes cover many of the sections until one asks for them to be revealed. That wasn't exactly the layout of Powell's City of Books, but the bookstore in Portland, Oregon, is the largest in the world and was certainly worth the visit.

Imagine being a bookstore that encompasses and entire block, one with graphic novels on shelf after shelf, from the floor to twenty feet above your head -- and that was just *one* section of GN's. Powell's had several sections -a couple of Manga sections (one for general Manga, another for adolescents favorites), an adult graphic novels section (not what you think, but they probably had a section of those too somewhere), and a kids graphic novel section.

Twas bliss. Never have I been in a bookstore so big, they give you a map of the place when you walk in the door. And despite the inexplicable absence of copies of Maus I (II was in abundance), the graphic novel section was impressive. If only I could visit Powell's again as easily as I do that bookstore in my dreams...

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