While Philip and I were in Portland, Oregon, we made two (2) trips to spend our gift card at Powell’s Books. Powell’s is an enormous new and used bookstore, so large that it must color-code its rooms. Purple is history, Gold is mystery / horror / science fiction and fantasy, and Blue – my favorite – is fiction and literature.
The aisle in the Blue Room extends twice as far as you can see, and the shelves reach the ceiling.
In the Gold Room, I geeked out when I discovered a column covered in science-fiction authors’ signatures. Evidently visiting authors are invited to autograph the building (!). Here is a sample of one side of the column, which included authors such as Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, William Gibson, Brian Herbert, Connie Willis, Harry Turtledove, Neil Gaiman, and many spectacular others.
I apologize profusely for its being sideways. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to rotate the photo. Anyway. The following, I think, will exonerate me from technical inadequacy.
My favorite authors Ursula K. Le Guin and Mary Doria Russell signed their names right next to each other!
*screams*
All right, I’m all right now. As they say, no one is a fan like a science fiction fan.
Some of the many books that Philip and I bought include Charlemagne by Derek Wilson, The Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin, a prose translation of the Odyssey by T.E. Shaw (T.E. Lawrence), Liddel Hart’s biography of Lawrence, a VSI about Galaxies, And Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, a history of Byzantium, About a Boy by Nick Hornby, something by Doris Lessing, etc. Most of them have now found places on the shelves in our new apartment (which is coming together beautifully – pictures soon).
I shall leave you with a view from our balcony at the Marriott Waterfront:
Mostly About Books 