Port Hole Books & Publishing

There are two locations for Port Hole Books: One in Florence, and one in Gardiner. They also offer an online shopping option through their website. This review is for the Gardiner location, right off of hwy 101 just north of Reedsport along the Umpqua River.
This might be odd to note, but the place smells good, which is something I like in a bookstore. I’ve found in some bookstores the smell is bad and makes the shopping experience not as fun, but this one smells clean, which is a plus. It is also decorated a bit which adds to the aesthetic. It’s not the nicest bookstore we’ve ever visited, but it’s definitely a step up from the dusty musty mountains of old books you find in some used book shops. If my experience had just stopped there, I would have left with a good feeling about the place. More on that in a bit.
This bookstore has a decent selection of books both used and new, especially for it’s small size. I found two books by Bonnie Henderson (my favorite Oregon author) and my husband found several books he was interested in. Prices were a little steep, but my hubby and I are used to paying a bit more while on the coast, so we were OK with that. In total we found 10 books we wished to purchase.
It was the final purchasing transaction that has us not wanting to return to this bookstore. Running the ship — the only employee around running the bookstore while we were there — was a very unprofessional, dirty-​looking man with holes in his clothing and filthy hands who didn’t seem to want to sell us any books. He actually talked us out of buying one book, and then when we had settled on the books we really did want to buy, he sort of behaved as if he didn’t know what to do. Honestly, he seemed high. Not like pothead high, but tweaker high. This made us really nervous.
We were originally going to pay with our debit card, as we had about $ 120 worth of books and not that much cash on hand. But because the man made us so nervous, I didn’t feel safe using my credit card or debit card here. In married person code (we’ve been married 20 years so we’ve developed this over time) I let my husband know we were not using our debit card here and so we decided to put even more books back and would only buy what we could pay cash for.
The guy seemed happy about that. And I realized that he was just overwhelmed with having to ring up 10 books. Even though he works at a bookstore and that’s, like, his job. Now that we only had three books for the transaction he seemed to calm down a bit. I suppose three felt more manageable to him than ten. But then he picked up the calculator.
He couldn’t figure out how to use the calculator, and so he threw it down angrily on the desk and walked to the back room mumbling something. My husband and I were looking at each other like, «Should we run?» I was feeling a little freaked out by this man’s behavior. I was pretty sure he was a tweaker. I also wondered if perhaps he had just robbed the place, brutally murdered the real bookstore people, and their bloody lifeless bodies were in a backroom somewhere. Or maybe they were still alive and tied up? Should we call the police? My imagination was running wild. Maybe I’ve read too many books!
But then the tweaker bookstore man came back out with another calculator. Again, he could not work the calculator, and he kept mumbling… And this is where it gets really weird!
So he asked my husband if he has a calculator. My husband pulls out his cell phone and proceeds to add up the cost of our books, and arrives at a grand total. I quickly go through my wallet rounding up the cash. While my husband and I were doing all of this, the tweaker man is just standing there mumbling. Uh –oh… I realize that I don’t have perfect change, so he owes us 70 cents. Oh dear…
He starts fumbling around, and asking my husband several times what the total was… and you can see on his face he’s trying to figure out how much change to give… and struggling. And so I say, «You can keep the change it’s OK.»
Then he pulls out what looks like a notepad and starts fumbling through it and asks if we want a receipt. We said we didn’t need one — we didn’t want to stress him out even more. We pick up our books, and as we leave the store he’s just sitting there in the chair sort of mumbling to himself.
This was the most bizarre and worrisome point-​of-​sale transaction I’ve ever experienced in my life.
So, the bookstore itself is A-​OK, and that is why I gave three stars. But the man running the shop is a bit concerning. If you choose to stop here for books, here’s my advice for you: Don’t choose too many books so as not to overwhelm the staff, pay in cash so that you do not open yourself up for ID theft or credit card fraud, and bring a calculator! :)