Lisa Weiblen Lisa's picks are a true grab bag of café reading. There's something here for a hipster, a hippie, an existentialist, a poet, a child, and even something for the odd Joe with a vendetta against the Statue of Liberty.

Chris Bolton
Chris is a writer and an actor with a penchant for highly imaginative stories. Naturally, his favorite novels and movies are either comedies or horror stories. This also explain his interest in graphic novels.

Lisa Miller
Lisa is a moonlighting bookseller. She works at Powell's Technical Books by day and sings in a band at night. Her picks include practical books on the music recording business, web design, and a couple of southern fried novels every honky tonk girl should read.

J. P.
J. P. is one of the senior employees in our Internet department. He categorized his own picks very clearly: 1) photography 2) music, literature, film, and art 3) health, mind and body. Thanks J. P.

Miel Alegre
Miel is a true citizen of the world. Though she still clings to the American Dream (i.e. a visit to Graceland), she has actually lived on three continents and speaks four languages. This explains her focus: cultural criticism, history and ethnic studies. I don't know how she explains Bikini Kill.

Mike Irwin
Mike has compiled a list of great books to read on an airplane. This makes sense: as co-manager of our store at the airport, Mike has been talking books with airplane readers for years now. Here you'll find his customer's favorite escapist reading: thrillers, mysteries, horror, romance, gangsters, westerns, and even an epic romance or two.

Miriam Sontz
Appropriately, the general manager of the world's largest independent bookstore thinks globally. For her recommendations, Miriam recommends a number of books on international affairs.

Chris Farley
When he's not editing the literary magazine Boswell, Farley is reading. His list of favorite books is simple to classify: it's literary fiction all the way down.

Michael Powell
So what does the owner of Powell's Books read? Given his family's roots in commercial fishing, it's no surprise: books about the sea and seafaring. Does the man who created the greatest independent bookstore in the country (in the world?) secretly long for another life?

Michelle Frost
Michelle fits the classic bookseller profile. She is passionate and idealistic; she loves books and reads broadly; and she is a published poet (of course). Her picks include a number of children's books (she runs the children's section at our Hawthorne store), an eclectic collection of fiction, a book about a German elephant, one each from our Buddhism and psychology sections. And poetry (of course).

Clark Hale
Clark is a manager at Powells.com. It's hard to classify his picks, they're located in so many different sections of the store: philosophy, psychology, american studies, art theory, etc. When he suggested calling this group, "Nonfiction Snooty Books," we didn't argue. When he's not deconstructing our postmodern world, though, Clark also reads some great fiction, preferably literary fiction (most often translated from another language), or that most truly American genre, noir crime fiction.

Greta Marchesi
Greta is a manager at our Burnside (read mothership) store. She is an avid reader and writer of poetry, so her recommendations naturally include some of her favorite poetry collections. The rest of her list, though, is more eclectic, including travel writing, anthropology, fiction, and an unusual assortment of biography and memoir.

Robin Fruitticher
Robin is the best read Florida Cracker (her term, not ours) we've ever met. She is the Joyce Carol Oates of readers. So when she is forced to name her favorites, you know it will be a good list. Her picks include literary fiction, mysteries, a cookbook, more fiction, a couple of memoirs and a biography. (But nothing by Joyce Carol Oates.)

Lucky
When he is not hunting for books for our Internet customers, Lucky writes fiction. This may explain his list of picks. Though he takes a break to recommend a political satire or two and ends with a collection of poetry, this list is almost exclusively literature. And it's a great list, though isn't it cheating to include so many Nobel Prize winners?

Carole Reichstein
Carole is the editor of Powell's Technical Books biyearly newsletter, Technica. It should come as no surprise then that her list includes a section called "Techie Picks." But Carole has also gathered together a great shortlist of fiction recommendations as well her favorite graphic novels (comic books for grown ups) and cartoon collections (if Edward Gorey can be called a cartoonist).

Dave Weich
Dave is a Web Producer here at Powells.com. The books he reads over and over again include novels, stories, and children's classics. He likes funny books, too, especially if things get a bit surreal. And since Portland is the first place he's called home without a full-season baseball team, he's been reading more on the subject to put him back in the mood of those grandstand seats at Fenway. Mmmm . . . [insert drool] . . . grandstand seats at Fenway . . .