Rare Book Monthly
Articles - November - 2004 Issue
Book Shopping in the Pacific Northwest
Book town Sydney-by-the-Sea in British Columbina, Canada
We had brought 12 boxes of good books for trade purposes. Every year or two I take good quality, miscellaneous titles that don't fit in with our inventory to Powell's in Portland, so the next day we struck out for Portland, which is a fairly short drive from Yreka. It took us a long time, however, as we hit every thrift store, bookstore and junk shop along the way. It was rather disappointing as many of these places simply don't have the good, high quality books that they used to have. However, we did mine a few gems. A word to the wise, don't try to find a motel in Salem, Oregon, late in the evening. We ended up driving all the way to Beaverton and got there very late, but we found a motel immediately and crashed.
We lived in Portland for seven years and have lots of friends there. Everything was lovely and green, the flowers were still blooming everywhere (that is the land of roses, after all) and we ate several great meals at our favorite old restaurants. There is almost no end to the book and thrift stores in Portland, but with our prior knowledge of which ones had the best deals, we found a few more boxes of books.
We hit Powell's first with our trade books and were quite disappointed to find that they are not taking nearly as many books as they used to, and that they are not paying much for what they do take. I walked away with about three boxes, as opposed to my usual 10-12 boxes. I think it will be the last time I take any books there to trade. We stopped at Cameron's Books on SW 3rd downtown. Cameron's has been there for all eternity, I think, and it is funky and not too tidy, but still fun to rummage through. They took a few more of my leftover trade books and we found about half a box of good gardening books for very reasonable prices. One little jewel of a store in Portland that many folks don't know about is in North Portland on N. Lombard St. It is called Paperbacks, etc., but has a very nice hardcover, non-fiction section in the back where we picked up several good art technique books and cookbooks. Mark and Janet are very nice folks and he gave us a generous dealer discount. One of the better thrift stores in Portland is the William Temple Thrift in the northwest part of town. They often have some good books and at reasonable prices. In addition, there is a Goodwill on NW Burnside that usually has some good stuff, though this time was disappointing.
