Mother Foucault's Bookshop — Local services in Portland

This show reminds me of a more spacious Shakespeare & Co, an awesome little shop in Paris. The old creaky floors, books tucked away everywhere, a treasure hunt... Despite their no-cameras policy, I may have to sneak a few photos just to entice people to go into this shop. Get down on your hands and knees and you'll find books under things and tucked behind other stuff, in addition to what's on the shelves. It's like a treasure hunt! Which is what I call hunting for old books to add to my collection of rare and old books, but aside from even that, it feels like a literal treasure hunt! Prices are shockingly good, and I found quite a few foreign language books on the shelves with the English books, almost as many books in French as I find at Powell's on Burnside, which I check a lot.

I'm lamenting only discovering this shop today. I'm having surgery on Monday and will have limited mobility for several weeks (surgery on both feet), and I'm antsy to go back and to take my best friend, who won't be home until Monday. ARGH. Not getting to Powell's on Burnside will be bad enough (the Cedar Hills location is spacious enough that I might be able to manage it, and screw Hawthorne), but not getting to this shop will be painful!! There's so much I didn't get a chance to see today. Yes, Powell's still has a larger selection, but this shop may now be my favorite. The treasure hunt aspect of it, finding literature under tables or in cabinets, the old creaky floors the incredible atmosphere... Absolutely amazing and I can't...

I begin with a brief bit of necessary digression, all apologies. I am professional "homme de loisirs" ("man of leisure"). It is forgivable that one may inquire, what, exactly, is a professional "homme de loisirs"? Certain socially necessary positions (e.g. Secretaries of State, Advertising Executives, CEOs of Snack Food Conglomerates, Celebrity Lawyers, etc.) are populated by individuals who lead lives much too hectic, much too important to afford themselves Leisure Time. Thus, mon liege, ma vie.("my liege, my life"). Which is to say, these important individuals with lives much too frantic to enjoy even a single moment of leisure, hire my services. They employ me, in a sub-contractual capacity, to satisfy certain tax necessities, to leisure for them All day I perch in coffee-shops, slither through book stores, gawk into the dancing light of bubbling brooks, then craft a memo or two of my day’s leisure, and send it off to my clients. The checks are automatically deposited.

As such Mother Foucault's Bookshop is the precise experience I seek. A bookshop so timeless, so profound, so very crammed full of books (books here, books there, books everywhere!). One could spend the whole day drifting, languidly, pleasantly, like a massive whale, through the depths of this wonderful and beautiful bookshop. For those peeps who care, I purchased, a bit ironically those peeps may surmise, some...

If you're reading a review about a book store... just stop, and go. There's nothing that I can say to fully describe how movie-esc Mother Foucault's is. You walk in and it's less bookstore and more... like home. Now this place won't be for everyone. If you're looking for a prim and proper, organized sort of layout - you know where to go in the city for that.

Here you're destined to find books you never imagined would interest you... a hundred plus years worth of knowledge and romance, and science, and law; it's like the Thesaurus of Bookshops, if that could be a thing.

I'll leave you with this: as a child I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up, and this is the closest I'm ever going to get to roleplaying as one because I do not have the financial backing or patience to commit to that level...