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With Portland Book Festival coming this weekend, it’s easy to forget that Literary Arts will celebrate another milestone later this year: moving into its new headquarters in last December. The expanded Buckman neighborhood building includes an on-site cafe and bookshop to help supplement Portland’s leading literary organization’s attractions. Beloved bookshop Mother Foucalt’s also moved last winter to a new location when its lease expired, enlisting a volunteer army to move its stock by hand.
Indeed, Portland’s bookstore scene has grown volumes recently, with shops like Midslumber Media and Grand Gesture Books finding ways to reach niche but passionate readers. Here are a few of Portland’s newest bookstores that have opened within the past year that have caught our attention. If you learn about a book or author this weekend, there’s little doubt you’ll find a fellow bookworm in one of these shops to help you burrow deeper into your fall-winter reading list (or find gifts for someone ahead of Black Friday).
Selected Stories
It’s been a few years since the art gallery and book shop Nationale moved to East Burnside, but its former location on Southeast Division Street is once again a bookshop and curated gift shop. Selected Stories opened in September after a few years as a pop-up shop, and while the store features more full-length bookshelves than gallery wall space, it’s still a cozy and welcoming place for curious shoppers seeking mental stimulation. 3360 SE Division St., 971-383-1505, selectedstoriesbooks.com. 11 am–6 pm Tuesday–Thursday, 11 am–7 pm Friday and Saturday, noon–5 pm Sunday.
Grand Gesture Books
The dedicated romance bookstore celebrated its first year in business in October. Katherine Morgan’s Black- and queer-owned shop keeps the sparks flying with shelves and events dedicated to stories of love and lust in all its forms. Temperatures might be dropping, but Morgan’s inventory will surely keep things steamy. And who knows? Browsing Grand Gesture Books’ wares might teach you a thing or two that could serve you well come cuffing season. 814 SW 10th Ave., bookshop.org/shop/grandgesturebooks. 11 am–5 pm Tuesday–Sunday.
Always Here Bookstore
The LGBTQ+ bookshop moved into its permanent new home back in March, just a few blocks from the space it shared with Jelly Cup Collective, a gift shop that closed last December. Rafael and John Hart’s shop on North Williams Avenue is more than just a retail store, but a growing queer community space. Always Here Bookstore hosts book club readings and a community bulletin board to help connect queer Portlanders with one another. 4555 N Williams Ave., 503-208-4799, alwaysherebooks.com. 11 am–6 pm Wednesday–Sunday.
Second Shapes
The Kenton neighborhood used bookstore Second Shapes wants to be a neighborhood shop in the truest sense. Along with selling new and used zines and prioritizing works by local authors, Second Shapes also sells artworks, crafts, gifts and self-published works by neighborhood residents and hosts pop-up markets to support small-batch vendors. Second Shapes hosts events such as plant swaps, children’s playtime hours, and collage art meetups, and offers a buyback membership program in which shoppers can sell books for store credit. 8124 N Denver Ave., secondshapesbookstore.com. Noon–6 pm Thursday–Sunday.
Bold Coffee and Books
Family-owned Bold Coffee and Books opened downtown last October, boasting one of this list’s more robust cafe menus (it also serves beer, cider and wine after 4 pm). Along with lattes and drip coffee, Bold Coffee and Books also slings Italian sodas, syrup-enhanced Red Bull spritzers, and pastries from Farina Bakery. Eighty percent of Bold Coffee and Books’ inventory is by authors and makers from underrepresented backgrounds and walks of life. 1755 SW Jefferson St., 971-888-5673, boldcoffeeandbooks.com. 7 am–7 pm Monday–Thursday, 7 am–5 pm Friday, 7 am–9 pm Saturday, 7 am–4 pm Sunday.
