PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

The Children’s Book Bank is an award-winning local nonprofit that collects, cleans, sorts, and redistributes books to children in need. Run by a small, dedicated staff and a host of volunteers, the Children’s Book Bank has distributed over 650,000 books and counting to eager young readers in the Portland area. Today, we sit down with Program Manager Jessica Levay to talk about being seen and understood through the transformative act of reading...

Portland’s Third Eye Books, Accessories & Gifts, owned and operated by Charles Hannah and Michelle Lewis, focuses on African-centered books and gifts, and includes as its mission giving back to and supporting the community through cooperative economics and partnerships with local nonprofits like Self-Enhancement, Inc. and Camp Fire Columbia. Recently settled into a cozy storefront on SE Division Street, Charles and Michelle are warm, welcoming, and knowledgeable booksellers whose decades-long passion for reading and advocacy is evident in everything they do.

We’re excited to dust off our City of Readers series with an interview with Charles Hannah.

Preferred name: Charles Hannah

Occupation: Bookstore co-owner

Where are you from originally? Rock Island, Illinois...

This month in City of Readers we’re featuring Laura Moulton, Marissa Santillan-Guzman, and Diana Rempe of Street Books, a bicycle-powered mobile library serving people who live outside.

When have you used fiction like a tool in your own life?
Laura: In high school, there was a wrestling coach named Mr. Graham whom I observed being very unkind to the kids who had long hair and wore black concert T-shirts. He tormented one kid until he dropped out of school altogether. In typing class, I drafted a memo supposedly from Mr. Graham to the entire faculty at the small Idaho high school, calling for condom dispensers to be placed in the boys’ bathroom and counseling office. Since my mom taught at the school, nobody noticed me distributing the flyers to every teacher box except Mr. Graham’s. The most thrilling part of the story was that several people believed the memo and confronted Mr. Graham about it. I received a 2-day suspension and on the last day of school that year, two different teachers stopped at my locker to tell me they loved the letter. That was the best use of fiction in my own life that I can remember...

This month in City of Readers we're featuring author escort Deborah Flynn-Hanrahan.

Describe your occupation.
Author escort. I know — the job title “escort” is highly problematic. I infinitely preferred “literary attaché,” but “author escort” is how the publishing industry knows and refers to people who do what I do: assist authors on national book tours with their local media appointments, school visits, and events at bookstores, clubs, and universities. We act as publicists-in-place, concierges, drivers, and tour guides. In the 15 years I’ve been involved in this arcane work, I’ve also made it my mission to compel visitors to fall in love with eccentric, irresistible Portland. That part is never difficult...

This month in City of Readers we're featuring David Naimon, host of the literary radio show and podcast Between the Covers. David is also a writer and an acupuncturist.

Where are you from originally?
Boulder, Colorado

Last book you loved:
Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Describe your first memorable reading experience.
My first memorable reading experience is reading The Monster at the End of This Book as a child. It was a riveting experience to have the narrator of the book, in this case Grover, address me directly, asking me, begging me not to turn the page (because if I did I’d be one page closer to the monster at the end of the book). And yet, despite Grover’s best efforts to prevent me, I compulsively turned the page again and again...

This month in City of Readers we're featuring Portland's first book publican, Elise Schumock, owner of the Rose City Book Pub.

Where are you from originally?
NE Portland, Oregon

Last book you loved:
Wrong Highway by Wendy Gordon. It’s about suburban discontent in the 1980s, a lot like Revolutionary Road with compelling, fully developed characters.

Describe your first memorable reading experience.
The first book I read entirely on my own was Popcorn by Frank Asch. This bear accidentally makes so much popcorn it fills his whole house and he had no choice but to eat it all. It tapped into so many concerns of childhood: making a mistake you didn’t see coming, trying to solve problems that are way outside of your ability, and having a food you love in abundance.

I spent a lot of time in the library at Sabin Elementary. My librarian was Mrs. Frye, who passed away last spring. At the book pub, just a few blocks from my old school, I named a rocking chair in her honor...

Where are you from originally?
Ellis: Mt. Kisco, NY
Meloy: Helena, MT

Last book you loved:
Ellis: My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh 
Meloy: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré 

Describe your first memorable reading experience.
Meloy: I remember being given the first of Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels, A Spell for Chameleon, by my cousin, who’d just finished reading it. I think I was 10 and my cousin was six years older than me — and the book seemed very grown up! The typeface was small and it was a mass market paperback, very different from the slim middle grade novels I’d been reading up to that point. I dove in and loved it...

What do you do in Portland?
I'm the goalkeeper for the Portland Timbers, and author of the It Had to Be Told series.

Where are you from originally?
I grew up in Clearwater, Florida.

Last book you loved:
Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand.

Describe your first memorable reading experience.
My first memorable reading experience was the book Holes. When I was younger, I was not much of a reader and it’d be really hard for me to get into a book. When I picked up Holes from a book fair, it was really the first time that I was excited about reading. Friends were talking about it, it was an easy read for a kid like me, and it kept me hooked from start to finish...