So I did a lot of stuff today, but before I get into all of that — donuts, food carts, drinking beer among the innards of a renovated elementary school — let’s take a moment to talk about Powell’s.
So intese was my anticipation for this bookstore that I actually did a little 4-year-old-style jig of joy outside its unassuming front door this afternoon. A legitimate city block in size, Powell’s is four stories high and has an inventory a million books strong. Yes, you heard me right: one. million. books. More importantly, with a copy-per-book average of 2 (per fabulous Powell’s COO Miriam Sontz, who I interviewed for Reuters) the store is at any given time home to approximately 500,000 unique titles, which are impressively organized into a series of color-coded rooms and then further by genre, author, title and edition (hardback, paperback and used). Powell’s — which, by the way, has four additional locations in Portland, plus three airport stores — is in equal measure inspiring and overwhelming, and forces one to reflect on the very institution of book publishing and selling (something like 2 million books are released worldwide each year, which means that despite its intense inventory, Powell’s houses as many books as the planet produces in a mere six months.)
Indeed, where Elliott Bay Book Co. felt devoted to the act of reading — replete with cozy armchairs and wooden tables — Powell’s dedication skews more towards the process of book discovery, and presenting potential readers with a collection so comprehensive and large in scope that one would feel remiss to leave the store without finding something to buy. Leaving Powell’s without a book in tow is like leaving the ocean without getting wet.
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