What a Bookstore!

For fall break my family and I (well... two kids of the family anyway, we left the college kids to their work and school) took off for a quick and fast and furious road trip to Portland and the Oregon Coast. Love that area of our country. Just love!

Anyway, one thing on our to do list was visit Powell's City of Books! Sadly, I had no idea this bookstore existed last time we were in the area (15 years ago.) But this time, I knew and I went!

They said I'd be overwhelmed and boy, were they ever right! Wow. I can't even describe it, but I'll try. It's huge. There's a ton of books. Everything is organized by room, with different topics and sorts of books in all the different rooms, color coded, three or four levels (I don't even know, I didn't get that far!) Used books and new books all mixed up together.

And tons and tons of people! It was crazy crowded.

Anyway, we took pictures:

Here's the corner of the building as we approached.

The main sign.

The list of where to find things.

Looking down over into the kids/YA room... of which this is just a tiny tiny part!

The stacks.

And stacks.

Just one shelf of Sense and Sensibility. The Jane Austen section was huge.

Me and my son posing in the fiction room
. I've got my little stack to buy, he's got some manga in his.
(Also, you can't see it here, but he's wearing his Dr. Who shirt and got
tons of comments all throughout the store.
Then we found they even have
a whole Dr. Who section!)

In line, I'm pondering the t shirt options.

And this is the t shirt I ended up with. :)

And the books I bought for myself... I'll be meeting Jonathan Maberry on Sat.
The other one was a used one in the Printz section, and
I think this guy is married to Robin McKinley. I'm curious!
Then we got the manga book for my son, and The Mark of Athena for my daughter. 

Bottom line: It was worth it!

Have you been to this book store? How would you describe your experience?