There’s this company in Bristol called “Book Barn”. Or rather, there was this company. They dealt in second hand and remaindered books and had a massive warehouse. They closed a bit ago when the lease on their warehouse had expired. They seem to have walked out leaving a warehouse full of books. The landlords, perhaps hoping to avoid the cost of a lot of skips, just made it known that anyone who wanted could just come and help themselves, up to some date (which I think is quite soon, so don’t all rush).
Of course, this got out and people were coming from all over the place. Some were book lover and collectors, some wanted to stock up charity shops, some came in white vans hoping for a quick buck.
I went along last Friday out of curiosity. I think most of the good stuff (and I don’t think there ever was much of that) had gone by then, although I did manage to find a 1961 copy of “The Eye of the Wind” – Peter Scott’s autobiography. I spend a fair bit of time at Slimbridge and I have some of his other books, so that was a nice bonus.
Some of the books were on shelves but many were just piled on the floor. I am not sure if this was done when the owners cleared out or if people just threw them there while going through the shelves. You got this surreal view of dozens of people just picking through the piles of books, like so many vultures. No, that’s unfair. Everyone I came across there was friendly and polite. they vertainly weren’t fighting over first editions!
In fact most people, like me, were a strange mixture of bemused and sad. I love books. I never turn down corners or bend back spines. I regard myself as pretty computer literate but I haven’t made the break with books yet (although I have played with a Sony Reader on display in Waterstones). And here was me with little choice but to walk over mountains of them just to get around the place.
Ironically, the only books in good condition were mainly manuals for obsolete computer software. Remaindered, I guess, rather than second hand.
While do I feel so sad about this?
A book mountain
