Ain't Portland Grand

Thank you very much for taking the time to look at us. We are a small business doing our best to have a great time while providing things of interest to our customers. We have lots of strange/esoteric/fun things to look at, in addition to a great selection of used and rare books. We would love to see you in person and encourage you to come into the store, located at 1401 SE Division St, Portland, OR 97202-1139. We are here in the afternoons Monday through Saturday.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Please leave us a (hopefully positive) review!

As the retail world has changed with the advent of the internet, we have done our best to make ourselves visible to the bibliophiles around us.  We have been successful in getting our website listed towards the top of results for used and rare bookstores here in Portland, but it would really help us if those of you who have visited our store could leave us positive reviews- they will register with Google and other search engines and help provide us with a stronger online presence, which in turn means that we will have better books and more customers to interact with on a day to day basis (that's a good thing).  Please let us know if you have any questions for us, and if you've had a negative experience with us feel free to contact us to let us know, as we do our best to be civil and helpful with everyone who walks through our doors.  Most of the time we do even better than that.  In any case, we hope that this finds you well and thanks for looking. 

You can leave those reviews at Insider Pages or at Google or places like Yelp; any others would be great too.  Thanks again.


Thursday, June 30, 2011

Thanks to everyone who visited us at the Rose City Used Book Fair!

We returned from the Rose City Used Book Fair with a bounce in our step and feeling good about business and things in general.  Thank you to everyone who came by to visit, and thank you to all those who purchased things from us this year.  We did a better job of bringing books which stood out, though I'm surprised that all of the kids books with beautiful dustjackets didn't sell- in fact, not a single one of them did.  In any case, we still have a great bookstore full of stuff and we welcome you to come in to take a look some day.  Thanks again to Debbie and Rachelle of PAUBA (www.pauba.org)  I've attached some photos below to give you an idea of what you missed in case you didn't have a chance to make it this year.  This is the 5th or 6th annual and it's always a great time, so we hope that you can make it next year.




New Featured Books on the website

I've noticed that it's not terribly difficult to upload photos of our books to our personal website, so I will begin to do so for the best books that we have- I hope to have photos of all of our books priced above $100 listed within a couple of months (let's see how I do).  Today I updated some of the featured listings on our site and think that they give potential customers a great idea of the kind of books which interest us and which we enjoy selling- the rare, beautiful and sometimes curious.  Thanks for looking and we hope that you find something which interests you.




Thursday, February 3, 2011

It's a Christmas Miracle!

We have finally gotten around to clearing out our large glass case which has been the holding place for all of our most rare books for the last 30 years.  Unfortunately for the last 5 it has been very difficult to get an idea of what we actually had for sale in there as it was overcrowded and disorganized.  After spending a couple of long hours working on it yesterday, things have now changed.  I have cleared out the rare works of academia which it is unlikely anyone will purchase on a whim, re-organized the books and most importantly positioned things so that nearly every book is now able to be seen clearly.  We encourage you to come in to see what we have, as we have been purchasing some new items such as a First Edition of Kerouac's Dharma Bums, important Ansel Adams books of photography, a rare Hemingway edition of Fiesta, a sixth printing of Joyce's Ulysses published by Shakespeare and Co, along with many others.  I am attaching photos to the post so that you can see the case in all its new-found glory and we hope to see you in person soon.  Thanks again for visiting and we hope that you are well.

Best,








Nile and Jon

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

We Finally Reveal Our Pretty Faces!

After being online for 7 years we thought we would finally post a photo of ourselves to let any of our internet customers see who they have been or could be dealing with in the future.  As we've mentioned, this is a family owned business and my Father and I are the only two people you will be dealing with if you call us.  The photo above was taken at the beach last year and though we both have stoic expressions on our faces I think it represents us fairly.  We are happy to be here, happy to be able to serve those of you who are interested in rare/interesting/fun/antiquarian books and we hope that you will feel comfortable doing business with us in the future.  If you come into the store you could even meet us in person!  Lucky us.  Thanks again for looking.

Monday, January 3, 2011

The perfect gift for long-time Blazers fans!!! Rip City!!!!



We have a limited number of sets issued by Bank of America during the 1991-92 season featuring the great Blazers players of the early 90s.  I was born and raised here in Portland I can remember screaming my head off rooting for them against the Bulls this year.  It was a tough loss but these are great conversation pieces and basically a must have for any serious fan of the Blazers.  Each set contains five lithographs, each featuring a different Blazer player in action on a bright colorful background.  There is one for Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Kevin Duckworth, Jerome Kersey and Buck Williams.  As I said, we have a limited number of sealed sets that would be the perfect gift for any Blazers fan, including yourself.  All of my friends love these and we have already sold 5 or 6 sets so come in to buy one if you're interested because I don't know how long we will have them.  They are $50 per set, and each lithograph is printed on a thicker card-type stock and is approximately 17" x 8".  Let us know if you have any questions at 503 239-5222 and Go Blazers.  Rip City! 

Happy 2011!! We are doing well and hope it's a great one for all of us.

We just want to thank you for looking at our website and/or blog and wish you a happy and healthy 2011.  2010 was long and arduous for many of us and we hope that this year is a great one for you and yours.  We plan on dealing in as many great books and printed materials as we can and hope that you will come visit us when you have a chance, or that we are able to do business with you online if you aren't in the area.  Thanks again and we wish you well.