Life is full of moments where a person is dealt a card that serves to change his perspective. I remember once in junior high school hearing one of my friends tell me, “Man, I hate reading”.
Hate reading? He might as well have said that he hated breathing. Unfortunately, I have found out that the non-readers outnumber the readers. Does this spell our doom as a society? Play it out over a couple more generations and then we’ll talk.
In the future, archeologists may sift through the remnants of a place like Powell’s and try to figure out just what we were up to with objects filled with paper and funny shapes printed on the pages. But in the meantime, Powell’s is king. And by king, I mean that they occupy an entire city block and have the distinction of the world’s largest used bookstore.
If you consider yourself a reading enthusiast, I recommend that you stop. The day I went, they didn’t have any Edward Bunker or Charles Bukowski in stock. Such is life.