{"id":8,"date":"2026-05-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/2026\/05\/19\/mother-foucaults\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T02:00:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T02:00:51","slug":"mother-foucaults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/2026\/05\/19\/mother-foucaults\/","title":{"rendered":"The Portland bookstore that isn&#8217;t Powell&#8217;s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-large-font-size wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"color:var(--wp--preset--color--muted);font-style:italic;line-height:1.55\">Powell&rsquo;s is the bookstore everyone knows. The bookstore worth your time is on the east side, and you&rsquo;ve probably walked past it twice without going in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Powell&rsquo;s City of Books is structurally impressive &mdash; ten color-coded rooms, around a million books, all of it built into a city block. It is also overwhelming, often crowded, and the staff don&rsquo;t have time to recommend things to you. If you want to BE in a bookstore for an afternoon, Powell&rsquo;s is the answer. If you want to leave with a book you&rsquo;ll actually read, there&rsquo;s a better option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mother Foucault&rsquo;s<\/strong> on SE Morrison is small, calm, and curated. Used books only; about 8,000 of them across one room and a small loft. The owner reads everything she sells; the recommendations stuck to the front of shelves are hers. If you tell her what you read last and liked, she will give you the next thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The store specializes in literary fiction, philosophy, and small-press poetry. There&rsquo;s a section in the back for books published by the in-house imprint (Mother Foucault&rsquo;s also publishes a small list each year &mdash; recent titles are good). The biography section is small but selective; you&rsquo;ll find Lispector and Bowles but not the latest celebrity memoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hours are limited and inconsistent. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Friday and Saturday afternoons, sometimes Sunday. Check the website before you go. If you can&rsquo;t make those hours: Annie Bloom&rsquo;s in Multnomah Village is the next-best option, and they&rsquo;re open every day.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Powell&rsquo;s is the bookstore everyone knows. The bookstore worth your time is on the east side, and you&rsquo;ve probably walked past it twice without going in. Powell&rsquo;s City of Books is structurally impressive &mdash; ten color-coded rooms, around a million books, all of it built into a city block. It is also overwhelming, often crowded, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":27,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northbound.wp.philiprehberger.com\/portland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}