When we read, we hear a voice in our heads—it is a voice of our own imagining, an individual translation of the language, of the text, of the writer's stylistic voice. It is cognitively tailored in a way no other voice can be. Reading is savoring, reflecting, free-associating. There is no substitute for it. It is a singular adventure. Its reward is not only the uniqueness of the experience it offers, but the depth of understanding it allows.

This small collection of photographs is a simple homage to the act of reading in general and to one of Portland's defining institutions in particular—Powell's City of Books. The largest independent bookstore in the country, it is a vital part of this city's cultural and intellectual life. It is not "a" bookstore—it is "the" bookstore. It has been my bookstore for more than thirty years.

My hope here has been to document—to produce a truthful record, to capture and to conserve for myself and others a resonating sense of this remarkable place, its profound abundance, its eclectic clientele.