Powell's prowling Seattle for used books. Portland, OR's famous and large new-and-used bookstore Powell's is setting up a temporary book-buying location in Seattle's University District for ten days in September. On the one hand, Powell's is robbing local book buyers from a local supply. On the other hand, Powell's tends to pay well, so well that many Seattlites (such as myself) tend to keep a stack of books in the closet for the sole purpose of making a road trip down to Portland to sell them. (For store credit, naturally.) And Seattle's local book buyers pay crap, at least for the stuff I'm hawking.