Powell's City of Books

One section of one floor

Our second stop in Portland was Powell's City of Books, billed as the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world, which

Powell's politics is the same as SF bookstores'.

occupies a full city block between NW 10th and 11th Avenues and between W. Burnside and NW Couch Streets. It contains over 68,000 square feet (6,300 m2), about 1.6 acres of retail floor space. CNN rates it one of the ten "coolest" bookstores in the world. The City of Books has nine color-coded rooms and over 3,500 different sections.

I'd been meaning to read Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), but the local library always had it checked out. (It's only about 12 bucks on Amazon, but for one reason or another I failed to pull the trigger.)

I asked the lady at Information where I could find a copy. Without having to look at a computer she said, "That's in Literature, the Blue Room." The Blue Room itself was huge, the size of a small Barnes & Noble. There were two dozen copies of On the Road, four different editions, most used, and in good condition.

There were even copies of the Original Scroll, the longer uncut edition that was published in 2007, 38 years after Kerouac's death. I picked up a copy of the 1957 version for $9.95, which allowed me to validate the parking stub and save $3.

Another benefit: there was no sales tax in Oregon. Don't scoff; at 8.75% in San Mateo County it adds up.