Here is a nice story about books and Portland neighborhoods:
Mark Lakeman compares the red library box down the block from his Sellwood home to a neighborhood's version of Pioneer Courthouse Square.
"It gives everyone a sense that they have something in common," says Lakeman, 50. "Even when people aren't using it, it's a symbol."
For more than 15 years, the box has provided neighborhood residents and visitors with an ever-evolving selection of titles, free for the taking. In exchange, neighbors restock it with their own books, giving new life to stories that otherwise would rest forgotten on a living room bookshelf or coffee table.
Since Lakeman installed Portland's first known community lending library at Southeast Ninth Avenue and Sherrett Street, residents from Alameda to Sunnyside have followed suit, turning Portland's tree-lined street corners into miniature community centers that nurture literacy and camaraderie on a neighborhood scale.
When Rick Waldren moved to Portland's Sunnyside neighborhood in 1996, he couldn't get enough of the book box near the sunflower-painted intersection south of 33rd and Belmont.
Waldren, 49, had lived in cities throughout the country but never saw anything like the micro-sized library on the corner. Soon he became a regular visitor.
"I started finding really neat things I would never have read," he says. Case in point: an independently published Canadian novel never sold in U.S. bookstores. "I got it just because it was in the box, and it was this beautiful novel about space and the effect of place on people."
When Waldren moved to the Alameda neighborhood last year, he wanted to carry on the tradition in his new locale. He installed an oversized black mailbox at the corner of Northeast 25th Avenue and Ridgewood Drive, painted "BOOKS" in block letters on the side and stocked it with a few favorites from his personal collection. Soon enough, the neighborhood's dog walkers and bicyclists took notice.
"I'm effectively known as Mr. Books now," Waldren says.
Isn't that a great idea? What a way to share books and to bring together a neighborhood!
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