50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Author Archive: "Adam P."

Original Essays

Reading the Queer Section

by Adam P., June 2, 2022 9:21 AM
Bookseller Adam P. discusses the LGBT book sections in bookstores

In the late summer of 2002, which is somehow nearly twenty years ago, I moved west across the Mississippi River, from St. Paul, Minnesota to Minneapolis, into a studio apartment just off Nicollet Avenue. I’d spent the previous three years living with friends I’d made while attending a nearby Christian college. After graduating, I started working at a Borders bookstore in the neighborhood, and made just enough money to pay for rent, food, and the occasional rock concert. Work gave me access to more books and magazines than I could ever read, more music than I could ever listen to, and more movies than I could ever watch. I made a valiant, but unsuccessful, attempt to satiate my hunger for all three types of media. I read...
Read More»



Poetry

Lunch Poems

by Adam P., July 24, 2014 1:53 PM
Most days, I carry a copy of Lunch Poems with me on my bus ride to work. It has been an icebreaker, a talisman, a security blanket, and much more. This 50th anniversary edition is a great opportunity to revisit one of the most celebrated poetry collections of the 20th century, or to discover it for the first time. It also includes 14 pages of illuminating correspondence between O'Hara and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as well as a preface by John Ashbery. And it's finally in hardcover, so it'll last even
Read More»



Guests

Black Hole

by Adam P., March 6, 2014 4:34 PM
Set in suburban Seattle in the 1970s, this graphic novel is the tale of a mysterious plague that has descended on the area's teenagers. Burns has a distinctive style, particularly suited to the disturbing stories he tells. While I love all his books, Black Hole is his masterpiece
Read More»



Guests

Necessary Errors

by Adam P., December 31, 2013 5:27 PM
Set in 1990, Necessary Errors follows Jacob Putnam through his first year after graduating from Harvard. While most of his friends continue their schooling immediately, Jacob spends the year far away from everyone he knows, teaching English in Prague. He spends time exploring the city, makes friends with other expats, and also frequents a gay bar where he falls in and out of love with two local men. This remarkable first novel made me reminisce about spending time abroad in my early 20s and also reminded me to be my most authentic self, even if others may not always
Read More»



Guests

Where You Are

by Adam P., December 17, 2013 1:33 PM
Maps usually plot things like mountain ranges and bodies of water on a grid in an attempt to make travel more efficient. This innovative book is in fact a box containing 16 individually bound maps, each one using geographical techniques to instead plot memories, thoughts, and feelings on a piece of paper. The result is experimental in form but as emotionally resonant as any essay collection I've read in recent
Read More»



Guests

I Remember by Joe Brainard

by Adam P., September 27, 2013 4:37 PM
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
Read More»



Guests

Dark Back of Time by Javier Marias

by Adam P., September 9, 2013 5:02 PM
In 1989, Javier Marias published a novel titled All Souls. Many readers assumed it to be a fictionalized account of his time as a professor at Oxford. In Dark Back of Time, Marias describes his return to Oxford, and his attempts to reclaim his previous book and its characters as pure fiction. In doing so, he ends up writing an exceptional memoir about the nature of time and perception and the fluidity of
Read More»



Guests

Very Recent History

by Adam P., August 15, 2013 8:00 AM
In Very Recent History, Choire Sicha, two-time editor of Gawker and cofounder of The Awl, manages to do three seemingly disparate things at once. First, he's written a kind of guide to our times for a visitor from far in the future. Our everyday life has never looked so foreign and strange. Second, he's taken readers on a gossipy, episodic romp through the romantic and erotic lives of a group of young gay men trying to find love and/or sex in New York City. Finally, and most impressively, Sicha has managed to describe, in frustrating detail, how unlivable New York has become to all but the most wealthy of its citizens. I've never read a book quite like this one. Utterly sui
Read More»



Guests

Necessary Errors

by Adam P., August 8, 2013 10:00 AM
Set in 1990, Necessary Errors follows Jacob Putnam through his first year after graduating from Harvard. While most of his friends continue their schooling immediately, Jacob spends the year far away from everyone he knows, teaching English in Prague. He spends time exploring the city, makes friends with other expats, and also frequents a gay bar where he falls in and out of love with two local men. This remarkable first novel made me reminisce about spending time abroad in my early 20s, and also reminded me to be my most authentic self, even if others may not always
Read More»



Guests

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

by Adam P., July 11, 2013 9:33 AM
When faced with tragedy, have you ever wished you could escape to another time — one that you imagine to be kinder, simpler somehow? What if you woke up one morning and FDR was president? Or Woodrow Wilson?  In this moving book, we walk with Greta Wells as she learns to navigate three different years: 1918, 1941, and 1985. You may find yourself wondering, as I did, How might I be different if I were born in another era? Or, What is the essence of ME — the part that would never
Read More»



next »

Most Read

  1. Best Books of 2022: Fiction by Powell's Staff
  2. The Big List of Backlist: Books That Got Us Through 2022 by Powell's Staff
  3. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  4. Powell's 2023 Book Preview: The First Quarter by Powell's Staff
  5. 7 Essential Authors Recommend Their 7 Essential Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms