We had a day off in Portland, where I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time before. It was sunny, which I hear is rare, so maybe that is affecting my impression, but this town is cool. Everyone we encountered was super nice, we found some excellent Thai food, and POWELL’S BOOKS. Oh my. I’ve been in big bookstores but this one went beyond.

The neatest thing I have ever seen in a bookstore – they have bought 7000 books from Anne Rice’s personal collection and are selling them. When I encountered this shelf I thought surely everything would be expensive…but not the case and I scored a book about selling your songs (she had quite a few lyric writing books as well as theology and history). The cool part is it’s annotated with all of Ms. Rice’s notes in the margins. So cool! I’m not a huge Rice reader, but it’s neat to own a book from someone who is a successful writer and have a peek into her world.