Dear Customers. We need your help. We are buried in art books! Just got in an entire bookcase of terrific art books, much on Russian art, many topics, and lots and lots and lots of them. You must please come and buy art books. We are drowning. We need the shelf space. It would be a kindness. And you’d know so much about art! Likewise, a large and serious library of Christian studies–serious theology, reference, history, much of a Russian base–has landed with a large thud and is still being unboxed. Much unusual stuff, many unusual titles–excellent for serious study. Now’s the chance! Come quickly. Buy books.

The Barn is honeycombed with sections reflective of our determined individuality and left-handed sense of humor. Some sections are scholarly and useful: Medieval and Renaissance Literature, for instance, Downstairs with the Medieval History, running from Mandeville to Margery Kemp, the Decameron to Tirant Lo Blanc; or Arthurian Literature, from the ancient grail romances to current retellings, reference books and studies. And some begin to shade into the left-handed humor realm, like a section of Vamp Lit, the current craze for Vampire romance novels, labelled “Books That Bite”. Downstairs again we have Wealth and Glamour, or Lifestyles of the Painfully Rich. Our nice selection of books on Napoleon Bonaparte is labelled “That Pestiferous Little Corsican”. Part of our Sixties History bookcase is marked “Radicals, Anarchists and Other Troublemakers,” for those in hunt of Hunter S. Thompson, Noam Chomsky, and those other folk who insist on telling us that all is Not As It Should Be. In the Downtown store, we have Rationalists, Skeptics and Other Killjoys; you know, the people who look unimpressed when you tell them that the Beast of Goom is in your cellar, drinking your Diet Coke. We have shelves of Cryptozoology–Bigfoot and his oft-photographed brethren–marked as “Odd Beasts and Beings” and “Funny Weird, Not Funny Ha-Ha.” One of the fun parts of working at the Barn is getting to run wild while labelling the shelves. So come run wild yourself–within the bounds of law and decorum, of course.

Did you know that periodically (and by periodically I mean several times a week,) we travel all over the state to pick up interesting lots of used books to bring back to the store? For instance, a few weeks ago we picked up a huge lot of Religion and Art books, some of which were in Russian. Two weeks ago we picked up an enormous bunch of books on Environmental Science, Botany and Entomology. And just last week we grabbed a lot full of Egyptology. Our store’s inventory is always changing and expanding, so be sure to visit as often as possible, because these lots we pick up in our down time are in addition to the thousands of books we buy on a daily basis- and we buy a wide and varied amount. Anything from James Patterson and Luanne Rice, to Neil Gaiman (the entire set of Sandman came in TWICE in the last month) to specialized Science, Art and Cooking. 

Next Monday night we will be heading out to grab a lot of about 3,000 like new Mystery, Science Fiction and Horror. When we pick up books like this we usually go and scan the lot first… (can you say field trip?!) and then schedule a date to go back for it. Then we round up a group of eager Barnfellows to go and box box box. Usually we’ll have new stock out and priced within several days of receiving, so you can start scanning the store for this material as soon as Tuesday afternoon. 

Hope to see you soon!

Just a heads up- the teen section is fit to burst full of books, and it’s more than doubled in size for those of you who haven’t been since last summer. Come and check it out, we’ll send you away with stacks and stacks!!