Trent DeBord Trent loves books but hates words, which explains his fetish for books with pictures. Trent has managed Powell's magnificent Photography section for years, but his latest brainchild (besides our Basil Hallward gallery) is the Excess Culture section (Or is it "eXceS Culture"? Or "XSCulture"?). Whatever it's spelling du jour, this section, celebrating all that is excessive or unnecessary in our culture, is one of the quirkiest, and most popular, in the City of Books.

Frank Bures
Why after living in Africa, Italy, and New Zealand would Frank settle in Oregon? Is it because he loves rain or because Oregon is the "Minnesota of the West"? Who can say? But though his hometown of choice may be – let's be honest – a tad provincial, his taste in books isn't. Frank's picks include a selection of books about Africa and Hispaniola, one photography title, and a couple odd fiction titles.

Kevin & Elizabeth
As Powell's events coordinator, Kevin Sampsell is responsible for bringing more than three hundred authors to our stores each year; he's also the head of our small press department. Elizabeth Miller, Powell's merchandising and marketing specialist, occupies a desk only seven feet away from Kevin. (We measured.) Guess what? They talk about books and authors incessantly. Among their faves are some small press classics and some others you've never heard of.

John McMahon
John should know how to recommend a good book to read – he is one of our used book buyers and gets to choose what titles we will put on our shelves. It is a highly skilled position, suited only to the most paranoid baseball fans among us. Let him handsell you some favorites including fiction from India, crime from the USA, the biography of a good Republican and his favorite novel of 2000.

Clyde Bailey
Clyde is our in-store graphic artist and our resident expert on all that is "martial" and "arty". For eleven years now, Clyde has practiced various Japanese martial arts as well as numerous versions of Adobe Photoshop, viewing each of his experiences as challenging, fulfilling and heaps of fun. Clyde kicks mean butt.

Michelle Williamson
Michelle is our Customer Service Training Coordinator, who also lends her expertise to the Kids team ten hours a week. She's crazy about the outdoors, having just learned to scuba dive, and is in training for the Seattle to Portland Bike Marathon. It would be hard to pin down her reading tastes. They range from the practical to the perverse, which will appeal to the kinky CPA in you.

Krista Gaylor
If Audrey Hepburn had been born a few decades later would she have dug the Rolling Stones? Hard to say. But if that icon of elegance had thought Charlie Watts an emblem of male perfection, she might have turned out something like Ms. Gaylor. She might even have liked the same books...

Amy Antonio
What would we do without Amy? She spreads sweetness and light throughout our workplace. But best of all, she makes everything beautiful! As our new resident graphic artist Amy has picked a whole bunch of arty design books for the discriminating aesthete. We are learning so much from Amy and are assured she is going to change the way the world sees Powells! Take this meaty icon for instance...

Stephen Strausbaugh
Stephen is one of the City of Book's handselling champions, able to recommend a good read from nearly every corner of the store. It wasn't easy, but we managed to whittle down his enormous list of favorites to a few diverse catagories including music, gardening, travel and film, just to name a few.

Rebecca Weakley
We're not sure what to do with our favorite literary hillbilly. We thought teaching her to read would be good for her career. We didn't know she'd take it so seriously. It's true, she got a job. And now when we want to get her out of our hair all we need to do is give her some old novel or dusty book of poetry. But now we've got her eyesight to worry about.

Mike Hockinson
Mike has worked at Powell's for eight years, and when he's not pushing books he's writing them. He has just followed up his enormously popular Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book with the Ultimate Beatles Quiz Book II. As well as being a Beatles afficionado, Mike has an extensive knowlege and love of science fiction, alternative comics and graphic novels. He is a talented man with a taste for the imaginative.

Chris Faatz
Chris Faatz is a lifelong bookseller, one of the best in the business (if we do say so ourselves). This former marketing manager for Graywolf Press knows his fiction and his poetry, but he is currently our in house specialist in the various religious philosophies. His ideal afternoon might include tea with Thich Naht Hanh and Thomas Merton to discuss the poems of Jane Kenyon.

Georgie Lewis
If Sally Bowles had gone on to get that MA instead of moving to naughty Berlin, her reading list would probably have looked something like Georgie's: smart, literary fiction and nonfiction in editions just trim enough to fit in a sharkskin handbag.

Ann Ellenbecker
Technical yet elegant, Ann's innate literary passions travel the intellectual spectrum, from physics, philosophy, and mathematics to camping and even beetle studies. Mix in her personal favorites by strong women writers and you've got many a summer evening's worth of heavy reading.

Steve Fidel
Steve has spent several years living abroad and done a great deal of travelling. This explains his fascination with (and his picks of) books about cultural differences and what happens when cultures collide. Steve enjoys reading about places he hasn't been as well, and has been reading a lot about Russia. Mostly he enjoy s reading fiction, and his page has several recommendations for some of his favorite novels written in first person.

Doug Brown
Doug's Picks page would be worth checking out if only to discover who makes the best field guides – to birds, stars, plants, reptiles, and amphibians. But Mr. Brown also presents five books about chaos and complexity (including one astonishing novel), and a pair of classics on snakes and animal behavior.

Mary Jo Schimelpfenig
Except for an unfortunate penchant for trashy vampire fiction, Mary Jo, who works in the City of Book's Gold Room, can generally be relied upon to help separate the good from the bad in our science fiction / fantasy / horror section.

Tracy Trudeau
With sections on crafts and cooking, Tracy's picks acurately reflect the fact that she spends most of her time these days in the City of Book's Orange Room. We don't know which left field those history picks came from.

Lisa Miller
Lisa is a moonlighting bookseller. She works at Powell's Technical Books by day and sings in a band at night. Her picks include practical books on the music recording business, web design, and a couple of southern fried novels every honky tonk girl should read.

J. P.
J. P. is one of the senior employees in our Internet department. He categorized his own picks very clearly: 1) photography 2) music, literature, film, and art 3) health, mind and body. Thanks J. P.

Miel Alegre
Miel is a true citizen of the world. Though she still clings to the American Dream (i.e. a visit to Graceland), she has actually lived on three continents and speaks four languages. This explains her focus: cultural criticism, history and ethnic studies. I don't know how she explains Bikini Kill.

Mike Irwin
Mike has compiled a list of great books to read on an airplane. This makes sense: as co-manager of our store at the airport, Mike has been talking books with airplane readers for years now. Here you'll find his customer's favorite escapist reading: thrillers, mysteries, horror, romance, gangsters, westerns, and even an epic romance or two.

Miriam Sontz
Appropriately, the general manager of the world's largest independent bookstore thinks globally. For her recommendations, Miriam recommends a number of books on international affairs.

Chris Farley
When he's not editing the literary magazine Boswell, Farley is reading. His list of favorite books is simple to classify: it's literary fiction all the way down.

Michael Powell
So what does the owner of Powell's Books read? Given his family's roots in commercial fishing, it's no surprise: books about the sea and seafaring. Does the man who created the greatest independent bookstore in the country (in the world?) secretly long for another life?

Michelle Frost
Michelle fits the classic bookseller profile. She is passionate and idealistic; she loves books and reads broadly; and she is a published poet (of course). Her picks include a number of children's books (she runs the children's section at our Hawthorne store), an eclectic collection of fiction, a book about a German elephant, one each from our Buddhism and psychology sections. And poetry (of course).

Clark Hale
Clark is a manager at Powells.com. It's hard to classify his picks, they're located in so many different sections of the store: philosophy, psychology, american studies, art theory, etc. When he suggested calling this group, "Nonfiction Snooty Books," we didn't argue. When he's not deconstructing our postmodern world, though, Clark also reads some great fiction, preferably literary fiction (most often translated from another language), or that most truly American genre, noir crime fiction.

Greta Marchesi
Greta is a manager at our Burnside (read mothership) store. She is an avid reader and writer of poetry, so her recommendations naturally include some of her favorite poetry collections. The rest of her list, though, is more eclectic, including travel writing, anthropology, fiction, and an unusual assortment of biography and memoir.

Robin Fruitticher
Robin is the best read Florida Cracker (her term, not ours) we've ever met. She is the Joyce Carol Oates of readers. So when she is forced to name her favorites, you know it will be a good list. Her picks include literary fiction, mysteries, a cookbook, more fiction, a couple of memoirs and a biography. (But nothing by Joyce Carol Oates.)

Lucky
When he is not hunting for books for our Internet customers, Lucky writes fiction. This may explain his list of picks. Though he takes a break to recommend a political satire or two and ends with a collection of poetry, this list is almost exclusively literature. And it's a great list, though isn't it cheating to include so many Nobel Prize winners?

Carole Reichstein
Carole is the editor of Powell's Technical Books biyearly newsletter, Technica. It should come as no surprise then that her list includes a section called "Techie Picks." But Carole has also gathered together a great shortlist of fiction recommendations as well her favorite graphic novels (comic books for grown ups) and cartoon collections (if Edward Gorey can be called a cartoonist).

Dave Weich
Dave is the Director of Content and Marketing here at Powells.com. The books he reads over and over again include novels, stories, and children's classics. He likes funny books, too, especially if things get a bit surreal. And since Portland is the first place he's called home without a full-season baseball team, he's been reading more on the subject to put him back in the mood of those grandstand seats at Fenway. Mmmm . . . [insert drool] . . . grandstand seats at Fenway . . .

Chris Bolton
Chris is a writer and an actor with a penchant for highly imaginative stories. Naturally, his favorite novels and movies are either comedies or horror stories. This also explain his interest in graphic novels.

Lisa W.
Lisa's picks are a true grab bag of café reading. There's something here for a hipster, a hippie, an existentialist, a poet, a child, and even something for the odd Joe with a vendetta against the Statue of Liberty.

Carol Edwards
Ms. Edwards's picks reflect the fact that she spends her working hours purchasing books for our Feminist Studies, Crime/Criminology, American Studies, Philosophy and Law sections. She must actually like that stuff!