The place in town for sci-fi and fantasy. You get to combine the thrill of the internet hunt with the actual shopping experience. Pretty damn cool. It is the largest game in town. And all those new and used books are shelved together, and the staff is handsome and brainy.
People tend to love or hate the place.
I get lost in the picture book section for hours. Powell's used to scare me, but now I like wandering around lost in there, or making a trip to Powell's a social occasion with friends, reading to each other from self-help books about psychopharmaceuticals or making scathing remarks about the horrible paper they use in most of the blank books and diaries. Their magazine section is really bad. Don't even bother. 20 Burnside PTB is the best place to cruise geeks, ever.