The Staff Shelf: Powell’s Books

When we walk into a bookstore, the first place we go is the staff recommendation shelves—it’s how you get a quick sense of the personality of the store. The very best bookstores are merely a reflection of the eclectic, deeply felt opinions of the book-lovers who work there. As part of our Interview with a Bookstore, we asked the staff at Powell’s Books what’s on their shelves.

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SLIDESHOW: Powell’s Books Staff Shelf

: MARK (FRONT LIST BUYER) RECOMMENDS: What a blessing it is for Kent Haruf fans to have one last story to savor. In his resonantly lean style, he sheds light on a relationship between two elderly people living alone yet seeking the warmth of companionship in conversation during nights spent in bed together. Here is the essence: lives enhanced by the simple gesture of reaching out to each other.

: JILL (MARKETING AND MERCHANDISING COORDINATOR) RECOMMENDS: Life after Life is not a traditional novel, with its stops and starts, its looping repetitions; Kate Atkinson builds a fully realized world by accruing a constellation of possibilities. It is a fantastically ambitious book, seeking to capture the complexity and momentousness of life itself, which succeeds on every level, and it is one of the best books I’ve read in years.

: ADAM (TRAINING AND HIRING COORDINATOR) RECOMMENDS: I’ve been an evangelist for Charles D’Ambrosio since I first read an essay he wrote in 2002. When a collection of his essays, Orphans, was issued in 2004, I made sure the bookstore I worked at in Minneapolis had plenty of copies on hand. D’Ambrosio’s descriptions of life in the Northwest convinced me that I needed a new start, and in 2005, I moved to Portland and started working at Powell’s. Orphans quickly fell out of print, and recommending these essays became harder. But with the publication of Loitering, I can again recommend these essays to everyone I meet!

: DIANAH (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: My advice on this book: do not read any reviews, blurbs, synopses, or even the back cover (or front, for that matter)! Just read the book! It’s one of those rare books that you need to approach blind; just dive in and experience it. The less you know, the better. You will fall under its crazy spell.

: GIGI (MARKETING AND MERCHANDISING COORDINATOR) RECOMMENDS: Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir is fierce and voluptuous. Intimate and expansive. Hard, hard stuff presented in gorgeous language. I picked it up on impulse, read the first line, and was crying before I reached the end of the opening segment. There’s heartbreak in here, yes. There’s rage and triumph. But what really brings tears to my eyes when I read is beauty.