Powell's City Of Books, Rare Book Room

If you could take just one photo: Powell's City of Books

Powell's "City of Books" is one of my favorite hangouts in downtown Portland. It's easily accessible and is a good place to grab a book and order a coffee and brownie as you take a break from the day or to even meet up with friends for book club. The store takes up a city block and has a great collection of books in color-coded rooms to choose from depending on your mood. I've spent a lot of afternoons catching up on the news, picking out postcards and trying on books for "size" before purchasing.

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Heaven for literature lovers, Powell's Books claims to be the world's largest independent new and used bookstore. You may faint from ecstasy after you walk into Powell's for the first time: It occupies an entire city block in the Pearl District of downtown Portland and boasts more than 68,000 square feet of space. (There's an entire floor for books on hold!) The humongous rooms, each the size of an ordinary bookstore, are color-coded and elaborately mapped—when you realize you've remained in the purple room for a few hours, you panic, knowing that a month isn't enough time to leisurely sift through the collection. The rare book room is worth the trek upstairs, while the selection of fiction, nonfiction, and children's books is vast enough to keep you busy rifling through the titles for a lifetime. Out-of-towners flock to Portland specifically to make this pilgrimage.

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