h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Which 'free' readers offer went up in smoke this week?

My apologies if I have confused people with the tiltle of this thread btw. I had forgotten there was a thread with the same title recently

cigar smokers weekly, with free introductory offer a hamlet classic

Nah, it was Magicians' Monthly's disappearing kit.

No, that's not it. I'll give you a clue. Try thinking along the lines not so much of an offer for readers of a particular publication, but for those who are readers in general.

The archive in Cologne just fell down - burying 30 kilometres of shelving with historical documents and several people under the rubble Probably due to their building a new undeground line. But as far as I know, it didn't catch fire.

Not Cologne Mala, but you are thinking along the right lines. Close enough to earn a near miss point in fact. It is a building filled with books.

Book barn closing down?

I know our local one simply opened the doors over the weekend. People ripped the guts out of the computers in the offices, took books, bookshelves, any and everything they could get their hands on...

Did one of them get burned?

Yes! 3 points to Robyn!

It is indeed Bookbarn on the Paintworks business park in Bristol, which failed to pay their lease and was given until the end of February to clear the building of books after which anything left behind would become the property of Paintworks. They didn't do so, and Paintworks found themselves with hundreds of thousands of books destined for sale on the internet.

Since they had no desires to become booksellers, they decided to open the doors at the end of last week and let anyone take whatever they wanted free of charge (Daily Mail readers might remember seeing the picture of the books piled up in the centre of the warehouse).

The free books offer was intended to continue through this week.
However, on Tuesday morning someone tried to set fire to a pile of books at the back of some shelves. Paintworks decided enough was enough and closed the doors to the public. All the books will now be carted off in skips for recycling instead.

Incidentally Robyn, the Bookbarn in question is a completely different firm than Bookbarn International which owns the book warehouse at Hallatrow (with a stock of over 5 million books). They are still very much in business and
slightly annoyed at the Daily Mail for not making that clearer in their 'scoop'.

o_0

I didn't know that it was a different company! That wasn't very clear at all, I've always assumed they were the same company, for years...

Friends of mine went down at the weekend, I was tempted (could do with stuff to flog) but decided against it, I could have loaded truck-loads of books up and still felt bad about leaving somebehind to be destroyed, and I'm not patient enough to fight off other browsers to maybe possibly find a gem if I'm lucky.

Some people are such morons. Starting fires in bookshops

Yes, certain people do have a knack of failing to recognise a good thing when it's offered to them on a plate and sabotaging things for everyone else. I had my eye on a free bookcase too

The picture of the Bristol bookbarn appears on the front page of Bookbarn International's website along with the notice that they are a different company:

http://www.bookbarn.co.uk/

Apparently they were pretty messed up MDF and rickety as hell Dont think you missed anything!

What's a bookbarn?

Oh, can I klaxon myself?

Ki...Kindl...I can't bear to do it.

Mal,

Bookbarns (the company and the solo one) are large barns (obviously closed-sided) full of books for sale. Shelves and shelves (and tables I was told, I never had the guts to venture into one) of second-hand and new I think.

it really does do what it says on the tin!

I don't know if the Bristol one ever had new books but Bookbarn International has only ever had used books. Most come from private homes but some are from schools and libraries clearing out their old stock.

Basically Mala, people take their old books in to Bookbarn and give them to the company, who then sell the books on to whoever wants them. The selling price is split 50/50 between Bookbarn and the books former owner. The barns are huge and you could easily spend the whole day looking around the place.

Well, if we're all done here I'll close the thread and award the points.

Br. Robyn Hoode gets 3 points for a correct answer,
Malabarista gets 1 point for a near miss.

I shall pass the scores on to Bob for tallying up.

Oooh a proper bookshop! Don't get many of those around here.

Well, there's one less than there was here!

Plenty of other real bookshops around here though, and we're not all that far from Hay-on-Wye... (is it hay-on-wye? all the bookshops?)