2074 NW Flanders St.
Portland, OR 97209
For a city that is so in love with books and reading, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that the Northwest neighborhood of Northwest Portland, the area around 21st Avenue, is somewhat devoid of bookstores. Maybe that is the power of Powell’s City of Books. Its reach extends for miles across the city, leaving other bookstores to wither and die. Then again, as soon as you take a sharp turn down Flanders Street off of 21st Avenue, you’ll come upon Daedalus Books. Once there, you’ll discover that not only are other bookstores alive around Portland, they’re healthy too.
Of course, Daedalus is much smaller than the new and used bookstore behemoth found ten blocks away down in the Pearl District. It makes up for its size with racks that are absolutely packed with all manners of reading material. Still,when you come into Daedalus, you should look into what it does best: philosophy and history. Yes, Daedalus, like the Greek scientist and father of Icarus that it is named after focuses mostly on more scholarly pursuits. Finding the new Dan Brown blockbuster is not the reason you come into Daedalus Books. Finding the books and sources Brown pilfered from to create hits such as the Da Vinci Code certainly is.
Yes, Daedalus is where you go to get the reading that will make you feel smarter when you finish it (or make you look smarter when people come over and see it on your book shelf). They have philosophy from the likes of Kant and Sartre in their original languages, so you can finally put that Comparative French Literature degree you picked up in college to good use. Or, you can just get lost in Daedalus’ impressive selection of art and photography books, and maybe even pick up a bit of inspiration for that project you have going at home.
Daedalus Books is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Agency Info: