As Connecticut's equivalent to Strand Book Store in Manhattan, Book Barn is a bibliophile's…read moreseemingly bottomless treasure chest! Indeed, dispersed at three distinct locations, BB provides three seemingly bottomless treasure chests. Be prepared to spend several hours browsing their shelves and, if you're game, to buy several armfuls of books.
Be prepared in other ways. At the main location, the Barn and its many satellite sheds have some aisles that are damp, dusty, and musty, so if you have respiratory allergies you are advised to wear a face mask there. And while you're at it, dig into your spelunker gear and wear a headlamp, because some of the corners and bottom shelves are so dark you must strain your eyes to read the book spines. Nevertheless, such perils are worth enduring when you arrive home with your trove of cherished books.
5-stars for buying books at Book Barn.
An advisory about selling books to BB. You might return home with half of your books unsold. Lugging heavy books from home to car trunk to BB and again to car trunk and again to home rarely can be worth your time and effort. Best to leave at home your paperbacks, and to bring only your hardbacks, as you are more likely sell most of your hardbound books. And best to arrive in the morning soon after they begin buying books, else you must wait in line behind other people selling their books.
But, and this is the big BUT. At the conclusion of their hasty appraisal of your entire load of books while you watched helplessly as they rummaged through your trove, be prepared for disappointment, if not humiliation. What they offer to pay you is dismal. They quote you one lump sum for your load of books, never for individual books, but the outcome is as if for, say, your scholarly hardbound book published by an academic press, a first printing in mint condition with its dust jacket intact, they will offer to pay you one-tenth of the price at which they will eventually sell it. To its credit, BB is hardly different from other used book stores in its book buying protocol.
Unless you are impoverished, you're better off saving yourself the time and trouble, and instead to donate your books to your local public library. Yet, even your public library will be as selective and unwelcoming, and most of the books they do accept from you will be sold at their annual book sale. The sad fact is that 99-percent of all used books, when measured solely in monetary terms of resale value, are totally worthless.
3-stars for selling your books at Book Barn. So 4-stars total.
