Mother Foucault's Bookshop

I can’t help but feel as if I am revealing a secret by writing about Mother Foucault’s Bookshop. This may be due to the way in which I stumbled upon the shop after walking for hours on a gloomy day over Burnside Bridge to Southeast Portland’s industrial district. I arrived with a sweaty forehead and red cheeks to a small, warm, bookish space. Mother Foucault’s Bookshop is somewhat of an enigma, a place from another time, with varnished wood tables and shelves. So much so, that I think it would lose some of its charm if it were famous for it. It is not a Powell’s and you will not be bumping shoulders with other browsers.  

Craig, the owner, was just leaving to pick up his kids from school as I arrived. Quintin, a kind old gentleman, played piano as I looked around as I listened to a beautiful arrangement of Thelonius Monk. Next to the old piano is a small wooden platform that is used as a stage for a host of events. 

Once Craig returned, the kids drew, read, and practiced piano with Quintin. Craig and I sat in green velvet chairs behind them and talked about books. 

Mother Foucault’s opened in 2011 and expanded to almost twice the size a few years later. Unlike most booksellers who must sell online to stay open, Craig has made due without the use of online sales. He is old-fashioned and runs the store’s business with paper and pen. There are even signs in the store banning the use of cellphones. I felt at home among the old wood and books, enjoying the absence of screens and artificial noise. It is a place where time is to be savored instead of rushed. When I mentioned to Craig that I still write letters, he told me about their "letter writing” days, where ladies come with tea and cookies and they devote a couple hours to just writing letters. 

Foucault was a social theorist and in a way Craig is too. He grew up in Portland but traveled the world in his youth, ending up back in Portland in a “big round about way." In his time abroad he worked at Shakespeare and Company. During the 90’s it was a hotspot for Parisian culture and artists. We spoke of how the famous Paris bookstore is different now, and how the homogenization of tourism is a threat to bookstores elsewhere. 

Nevertheless, Mother Foucault maintains its sincerity through offering an excellently curated selection of used, rare, and vintage titles. They specialize in post structuralist philosophy, but have a wide range of fiction, foreign language, translation, and poetry. Although it is considered a general book shop, the many unique treasures inside are seeds of history, philosophy, and poetry that relate to a past that we no longer know but should continually strive to understand. 

Follow events at Mother Foucault’s Here: http://motherfoucaultsbookshop.com/event-info/