Someone has to go there...

About twice a year we brace ourselves, pack up flask and sandwiches and head up to fight our way through the five million books at Book Barn near Midsomer Norton in Somerset because someone's got to do it.
The Book Barn discovery was quite by chance years ago on a return trip from Bath and we've been devotees ever since, what's not to love about five million books?
On the way we stopped at the Cathedral city of Wells for coffee and a mooch and apart from another wool shop to die for, there in the Oxfam shop book bounty for my Women's Social History shelves.

 

There are however secrets to a successful Book Barn visit and mostly that involves going with purpose and intent, trained as if for a marathon and armed with a list of authors or topics to search for. I have also found it helpful to take along Bookhound or a similarly well-trained trotter suitably shod for speed and mountaineering with long arms and a head for heights.
Books are shelved alphabetically under subject but only A-B-C and within each letter it's a free-for-all, you have to pick up a shelf map, commandeer a ladder on wheels of your own and just knuckle down and scan.
Firstly place your trotter in Fiction with a list and whisper 'Fetch' while you head off on a reconnaissance around the rest of the shelves.

 

There's always a Virago corner worth a peruse and then shelf after shelf of Letters & Diaries, then wall to wall Biography. Meanwhile your trotter may have completed their trawl of Fiction and returning to heel you can add in further book-specific commands.
I have been searching for months for a copy of The Chalk Garden, Enid Bagnold's play missed at the Donmar, and now that I'm into play reading I think I could probably manage all ten parts myself.
Bookhound returned for orders and so I set him off on the scent,
'Drama - The Chalk Garden - Enid Bagnold'
He was back within about ten seconds...yes really, he's pedigree.
'Do you mean this one?'
My jaw was agape with astonishment.
So we did well on all my odd selection of current chosen subjects and some chance finds too and we've left plenty of books behind for everyone else, miles of aisles (to quote Joni) just like this one.
Oh it was all a very glorious day.