A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Michael Toms for the iconic New Dimensions radio show. Toms, often called the...
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Powell's Books at PDX 7000 NE Airport Way, Suite 2250 Portland, OR97218
(map/directions)
United States of AmericaWork 503 228 465145.588996160486325,
-122.59589910507202
Powell's currently has three locations at Portland International Airport, our main store in the Oregon Market with satellite stores in the C and D concourses. Within all three branches, Powell's PDX offers an eclectic mix of the latest bestsellers, popular fiction and non-fiction, choice used books, games, toys and a wide range of gifts. Travelers usually don't expect to find a used bookstore in an airport, but book loving wanderers have made Powell's Books PDX a primary destination since 1988. We're not a magazine stand that carries a few books: we're a full-service bookstore offering all the amenities and services found at other Powell's locations. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff offers quick, on-the-mark recommendations for long flights, all-day business trips, vacation reading, journeys involving long hours with restless children, or any other combinations of factors involving your travel plans. Even Powell's airport locations buy used books. Sellers can drop off books to sell at any of the three airport locations. Here, these buying transactions require one or two days. After the books are assessed our buyer notifies the seller so that they can return to pick up either the books or their used book payout. PDX is voted the seventh best airport in the world for airport shopping! Read the story at the Huffington Post
Concourse C location: Daily: 5:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Concourse D location: Daily: 5:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
and 8:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Hours subject to change without notice.
Powell's currently has three locations at Portland International Airport, our main store in the Oregon Market with satellite stores in the C and D concourses. Within all three branches, Powell's PDX offers an eclectic mix of the latest bestsellers, popular fiction and non-fiction, choice used books, games, toys and a wide range of gifts.
Travelers usually don't expect to find a used bookstore in an airport, but book loving wanderers have made Powell's Books PDX a primary destination since 1988. We're not a magazine stand that carries a few books: we're a full-service bookstore offering all the amenities and services found at other Powell's locations.
Our friendly and knowledgeable staff offers quick, on-the-mark recommendations for long flights, all-day business trips, vacation reading, journeys involving long hours with restless children, or any other combinations of factors involving your travel plans.
Even Powell's airport locations buy used books. Sellers can drop off books to sell at any of the three airport locations. Here, these buying transactions require one or two days. After the books are assessed our buyer notifies the seller so that they can return to pick up either the books or their used book payout.
PDX is voted the seventh best airport in the world for airport shopping! Read the story at the Huffington Post
Here are just some of the books we're talking about at Powell's.
Trains and Lovers
The latest stand-alone novel by Alexander McCall Smith is a slight departure from his usual fare. It lacks the charm and lightness of his other offerings but gives, instead, a truly heartfelt dissertation on love.
Melancholy, poignant, and bittersweet, Trains and Lovers has four tales of romance — warts and all. Four strangers take a long train ride, sharing their personal stories along the way. Andrew tells his own love story, Kay tells the love story of her parents, Hugh tells a story of his slightly sinister entanglement, and David tells his story of a lifetime of longing for an unrequited love.
McCall Smith takes a ride on the serious side this time around; he paints a picture that is just a little more substantial than his usual "comfort food of literature" fare, and it is definitely worth a read.
This is Charlie's moving journal detailing both the extreme enhancement of his intellect by an experimental drug and his subsequent loss of intelligence. As I get older, I appreciate it even more for its insights into loss of abilities, because I see an analogy to aging.
I remember the first time I read this funny, amazing book. I remember thinking: What is this? Is it poetry? Is it prose? Is there going to be a plot? Is the entire book going to be statements that begin with the same two words? I remember, a couple of pages later, not caring about my questions anymore. I remember turning the final page, and then immediately starting over because I couldn't bear for it to end. I remember buying every copy I came across, so I could hand it out to friends and still make sure I had one left for me.
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo
The Black Count is the story of Alex Dumas, the father of Alexandre Dumas and inspiration for some of the best adventure fiction ever written. Alex Dumas's life is stranger than fiction in a time when hope for the common man, equality, and emancipation are vying to be the ideals of a revolution.
Fun Home is a memoir told in the form of a graphic novel, a collage of comic artist Alison Bechdel's impressions of her life — from her childhood spent growing up in a funeral home to her college years discovering women and burying her closeted father. Bechdel layers her methodical drawings with precise, searching prose, allowing her readers to live beside her as she tries to make sense of herself in light of her father's secrets and possible suicide.
Most celebrity musician memoirs amount to not much more than an inevitable litany of the excesses that come with the dubious position of rock star. Sting, however, makes the interesting (and refreshing) choice to stop his memoir right before The Police hit it big. While the opening recollection of his first experience with the entheogen ayahuasca is worth the price of admission alone, Broken Music unfolds itself into a wonderfully written memoir. Melancholic and beautiful, the story of the people, places, and events that carried Sting to the world stage is a rewarding experience no matter how one feels about his musical output.
This book is for any woman who has been frustrated at the world but doesn't know why. Muscio is unforgiving and blunt in her delivery of her fantastically liberating experiences that make her a woman. Relatable, funny, and completely shocking at times, this headfirst dive into feminism will leave you empowered to take on the inequalities that people face every day.
"When you live your life through records, the records are a record of your life."
Drummer, DJ, producer, and cofounder of the legendary Roots crew, Ahmir "Questlove" (a.k.a. "?uestlove" and "Questo") Thompson is one of the music world's most virtuosic individuals. Possessing talent in spades, Questlove's accomplishments are many, but it is his encyclopedic knowledge and abiding passion for music past and present that set him in another realm. Mo' Meta Blues is indeed a music memoir, but it's the story of a life shaped by song most of all.
Quest begins his bio with the obligatory childhood recollections, albeit ones perhaps far more fascinating than the average musical superstar. Lee Andrews, his father, helmed a Philly-based doo-wop group, surrounding and immersing him in the music industry from a very young age. Questo revisits his formative years in West Philly — recalling an early (and still enduring) obsession with Rolling Stone and record reviews in general, the first time he heard The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," as well as the artists and albums that defined this era of his life (his love for Prince is likely unrivaled). Questlove goes on to detail his career chronologically, from meeting Roots MC and cofounder Tariq Trotter ("Black Thought") while at Philly's High School for the Creative and Performing Arts (and paying their dues as a drum/voice duet on South Street) through to the Roots' work as the house band on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the group's most recent (and remarkable) album, 2012's Undun.
Surely, Quest's memoir will appeal most of all to fans of the Roots and hip hop in general. While a knowledge of rap isn't necessary, a passable understanding of the genre ought to enliven the myriad stories (especially as he elaborates on early hip hop pioneers and luminaries, as well as his later work with the likes of D'Angelo, Dilla, the Soulquarians, and others). Ardent Roots fan or not, Mo' Meta Blues is a candid, thoughtful, well-written work full of humility, humor, and anti-hubris. In writing about records, race, success, creativity, self-doubt, hardship, and heartbreak, Questlove stands raw and unadorned, without the familiarity and comfort of his drum set or turntables to deflect attention. Erudite and entertaining, Mo' Meta Blues is much more than the mere record of Questo's career — it's a sensitive, observant take on a life lived in, with, through, and surrounded by meaningful music.
And so that's how it goes. I keep moving through time and time keeps moving through me. And through that process, life takes shape. The question is what shape it is. I'm not the first person to ask this question, or to see how absurd it is to think there's a real answer. Maybe life's a circle. Maybe what goes around comes around. Maybe there's karma and an account ledger that balances off all debts and credits. Part of me believes that: the part of me that remembers that my drums are circles, that turntables are circles. But drumsticks are straight, and there are times when life seems like an arrow that goes in one direction and one direction only, toward a final target that might not be a final reward... Music has the power to stop time. But music also keeps time. Drummers are timekeepers. Music conserves time and serves time, just as time conserves and serves music. I think I have to believe in circularity, even if I know that the arrow's coming in on the wing... Will the circle be unbroken? That's not the only circle that's a question. Every circle is. Lines are statements. Arrows are especially emphatic statements. They divide and they define. They count up and count down. Circles are more careful. They come around again. They overthink. They analyze. They go back to the scene of the crime. They retrace their steps. That's where I end up, definitely maybe, always circumspect, always circumscribed by questions, by curiosity, by a certainty that I need a certain amount of uncertainty.
If you're a true Roots fan, Questlove's acknowledgements will undoubtedly be as gratifying as the past 20 years of liner notes.
Mystery is not a genre I dive into very often, but I always make an exception for the well-written characters of Walter Mosley: Socrates Fortlow, Fearless Jones, Leonid McGill, and — my favorite — Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins. Over the course of 10 novels, spanning from 1948 to 1967, the L.A.-based black detective and World War II vet has solved murders while confronting the racial inequities that are sadly still a part of the African American experience.
When the author appeared to kill off Rawlins in 2007's Blonde Faith, I mourned the end of a great series. But Mosley delighted his fans with Easy's return this past summer. In Little Green, Easy is cruising the Sunset Strip during the Summer of Love, recovering from his injuries as he investigates the disappearance of a young black man on a bad acid trip and his reappearance with over $200,000 he can't explain.
If you're an Easy fan, reading Little Green is like slipping on a comfortable pair of shoes. All your favorite supporting players are back (plus a surprise return). And if you've never read the series, I urge you to start at the beginning with Devil in a Blue Dress. You won't be sorry.
What would you give up for someone you love? For George and Margaret Blackledge, the answer is: everything.
Set in North Dakota in 1951, Let Him Go begins with the Blackledges leaving their home, security, and safety behind in order to retrieve their grandson from a situation which Margaret deems untenable. George and Margaret's son, James, has died in an accident, leaving his widow to find another husband and then move away with her small son. Margaret has meticulously planned this trip, and George can either stay or go, but Margaret intends to bring her grandson home. Unfortunately, she hasn't counted on the family of her daughter-in-law's new husband, the Weboys.
The Blackledges are first faced with rudeness and resistance from the Weboy clan, which shortly devolves into threats, hostility, and violence. It isn't too long before the situation explodes, and George and Margaret realize they are no match for the Weboys, and they are in way, way too deep. After retreating to lick their wounds, George and Margaret concede their defeat and prepare to return home.
Watson writes a masterful tale so heartbreaking and so sorrowful, it hurts to read it. Yet, at the same time, it is a gorgeous story about family, unconditional love, and sacrifice. My favorite book so far this year, Let Him Go is absolutely perfect.
In The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit weaves seemingly disparate topics, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to the birdman cult on Easter Island, with elements of her own life: her mother's advancing Alzheimer's, the collapse of a long-term relationship, a brush with cancer. The result is a book that is as fluid and boundless as a dream, and just as revealing. Solnit is a master at drawing connections in surprising ways, and in The Faraway Nearby, she marries the personal with the universal to create a fascinating read.
With this new collection, Amy Bender reminds us why she is a master of the odd and surprising. I'd recommend The Color Master to anyone looking for a book that will thrill and linger and maybe wig you out a little. Her growing canon of stories is like an army that destroys boring writing.
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
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Powell's currently has three locations at Portland International Airport, our main store in the Oregon Market with satellite stores in the C and D concourses. Within all three branches, Powell's PDX offers an eclectic mix of the latest bestsellers, popular fiction and non-fiction, choice used books, games, toys and a wide range of gifts.