One of the Nation’s Best

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One of the Nation’s Best – Powell’s in Portland, OR

May 10, 2010 in bookstore, One of the Nation's Best, used books by Kim | No comments

A couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend Leslie visited Portland and headed directly to Powell’s, the mother-of-great-bookstores. I was stuck in Los Angeles, mentally following her through the day. I e-mailed her a message to have fun just as she was entering the store. Hours later after I paid bills, picked up tired teenagers, and cleaned up the house for dinner guests, she e-mailed me that she was just leaving the store. One guess as to who had the better day. Here is Leslie’s wonderful afternoon:

Powell’s Books in Portland has long been one of my favorite bookstores. However, it’s been years since I’ve been there and I caught myself wondering if it was truly as special as I recalled or if my memory had turned it into something far better than it really is.

I recently returned from Portland to see a good friend who, when we were talking about what to do during my visit, immediately asked “You want to go to Powell’s, right”? We made sure that there was enough time to spend a couple of hours perusing the shelves. I’m very pleased that my memory was correct – it is a fabulous independent bookstore. And, a few hours really, for me, was not enough time to spend there. (My mother-in-law, who lives outside of Brunswick, Georgia doesn’t have a lot of good department stores in her immediate area and is always on the hunt for clothes. She was in Portland a few years ago and passed up two free afternoons shopping in Nordstroms so that she could spend more time at Powell’s. It’s that kind of place).

My girlfriend in Portland, Laura, visits Powell’s fairly often. She brought me up to speed on several of the changes that they’ve made over the years. The best change is that the store just simply keeps getting bigger. It now takes up an entire city block. If you don’t want to look through every single section like I wanted to, the sections are all color coded with very easy to understand colored signs. Looking for fiction? Look for the blue and gold signs. Philosophy? You’ll find it under the Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: online used books bought, online used books sold, Oregon, Oregon bookstore, Portland, Portland bookstore

Vroman’s Bookstore – Southern California’s Oldest and Largest Independent Bookstore

February 9, 2010 in bookstore, mystery, One of the Nation's Best by Kim | 3 comments

Every fan of independent bookstores talks about their importance in creating community. Sometimes it’s hard to know what that means. There is certainly interaction between the customers and the booksellers, and between readers and authors at events. Those are “wheels and spokes” models of interaction, all directed toward a center. How does an independent bookstore create an opportunity for the spokes to interact? Visit Vroman’s. It’s not unusual for me to chat up complete strangers looking at books in a bookstore. Just pick up The Elegance of the Hedgehog and get ready to hear my thoughts despite the fact you’ve never met me. At Vroman’s, customers were clustered in groups and talking all over the store. And not all of them knew each other, I know because I was eavesdropping. I wasn’t in the store for 10 minutes when a customer walked up to me, pointed at The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig and told me it was a beautifully written story. Wanting to exchange the favor in the D section of fiction, I recommended The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. We both walked away with a new book.

Just when I was going to ask a bookseller for a recommendation, I heard one of the employees recommend Louis de Bernieres for a “sophisticated, educated woman” who was in the hospital. Well, I’m not bedridden, but I flattered myself that the rest of the description may apply so I discretely followed along (stalked them). I didn’t connect de Bernieres with Corelli’s Mandolin, probably because I’ve only seen the movie, but the bookseller raved about it. I bought his A Partisan’s Daughter to give it a try.

What else did I find? Looking at the WALL of employee recommendations I found Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: best bookstore, bookstore community, California, California bookstore, Pasadena, Pasadena bookstore

Happy 25th Anniversary Politics and Prose!

September 8, 2009 in book review, bookstore, One of the Nation's Best by Kim | 2 comments

Before my trip to Washington DC, I sent out a twitter message requesting recommendations for bookstores to visit and review. The resounding favorite was Politics and Prose. Thomas Heath of the Washington Post wrote a terrific article describing the store, so I’ll just add my personal insights. I resisted visiting Politics and Prose during previous trips to DC because it felt difficult to get to from the directions on the website, at least to a person relatively unfamiliar to the area. So here’s the most important fact I can add about Politics and Prose, it’s easy to reach from the closest Metro stop. While Keith and I took a taxi to the store, due to my directions concerns, we enjoyed a lovely stroll back to the Metro station, it’s a quick walk through a nice area of the city.

Heath described the event calendar at Politics and Prose as jammed packed and ”hardly a week goes by when a Washington Post journalist isn’t reading from his or her book.” I thought it was an exaggerated comment until I pulled up the event calendar for the week I was in town and found a reading every night. We attended a discussion by Bradley Graham, former military and foreign affairs reporter for the Washington Post, and author of By His Own Rules, a biography of Donald Rumsfeld. Walking in 10 minutes before the talk, Keith and I took two of the last four available seats. I estimated at least 80 people attended. Graham started his talk by noting that people in favor of Rumsfeld tended to think the book was too harsh, while those who weren’t fans felt it was too gentle. Presumably, Graham knew where the Politics and Prose audience would fall. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Washington D.C, Washington D.C bookstore

One of the Nation’s Best – The Elliott Bay Book Company

November 16, 2008 in book review, bookstore, first editions, gifts, One of the Nation's Best, Uncategorized by Kim | No comments

A Gem still Glows

Eighteen years ago I visited Seattle for the first time. It was our first weekend trip away from a job I hated and a city I swore I would never live in (now I realize I’ll live in Los Angeles for the rest of my life, but I did get rid of that job). The angst I felt over all the changes in my life lifted the moment I walked into The Elliott Bay Book Company. I found a book during that first visit about living in suburbia; the recommendation card described the tedium of living in tract housing as the constant evenly paced whoosh of a Rainbird sprinkler. The description struck me, so I bought the book. It detailed the brain-numbing monotony of suburban life. Whenever I drive through tract housing I feel that oppression.

Interestingly enough, during my recent trip to Elliot Bay, I bought two more books about home life (really, they have over 150,000 titles, the breadth and depth of the store is amazing, I just seem to have a theme whenever I go there). When I walked into the store I was a bit overwhelmed by all of the choices. In front of me as soon as I entered where four 9 foot or taller bookshelves full of staff recommendations. I wanted all of them. More recommendations were spread among the various subjects. An entire bookshelf is dedicated to recommendations for books groups (plus book groups can meet with a staff member to discuss recommendations for their group and tips on how to keep the conversation on topic). I gave up trying to make a decision and asked the woman at the information desk if there was a unique book she liked. She had two that she talked about as we walked over to the books (I learned later that employees are trained to walk the customer over to the book they’re asking about chatting with them the entire way, I loved it). The first was Cost by Roxana Robinson, a story of what all of us give up for family. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it. Hmm, is this the appropriate book to be reading around the Christmas tree surrounded by family? Maybe not. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: book club, Seattle, Seattle bookstore, unique, Washington, Washington bookstore

One of the Nation’s Best – Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe

August 1, 2008 in bookstore, location, One of the Nation's Best by Kim | 1 comment

When I walked into Kramerbooks and Afterwords Cafe, four young employees were chatting behind the counter. I asked about a good read and learned that the staff was passing around Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. The book describes the author as an Read the rest of this entry »