The Paper Trail: Home Is Where the Book Hunt Is

I'm sitting at my gate in the Orlando airport as I write this, waiting to board a flight home to Connecticut.

Most people heading home are probably thinking about seeing family, catching up with old friends, or enjoying a favorite meal they can't get anywhere else. I'm looking forward to all of those things. There's nothing quite like Connecticut pizza, and there are people I can't wait to hug.

But if I'm being completely honest, there are two other stops already penciled into my itinerary. The first is Aux Délices in Riverside. Before the whirlwind of visits begins, I love settling in with a good cup of coffee and a pastry, watching the morning unfold, and reminding myself why Connecticut will always feel like home.

The second? The bookstores.

My family has long since accepted that no visit is complete without hearing me ask, "Do you mind if we make one quick stop?" They know that "quick" is a very flexible term and that if there's a used bookstore within fifty miles, I've almost certainly already mapped the route.

This trip's destination is one of my all-time favorites: The Book Barn in Niantic.

If you've never been, imagine someone deciding that one bookstore simply wasn't enough. Then imagine they kept adding barns, sheds, winding paths, gardens, resident cats, goats, and hundreds of thousands of books until it became less of a bookstore and more of a pilgrimage site for book lovers.

I'm delighted to report that the Book Barn is still thriving. With three locations in Niantic and shelves that seem to multiply every time I visit, it's one of those increasingly rare places where wandering is still part of the experience. There are no algorithms pointing you toward your next read. Just serendipity, dusty shelves, and the hope that something remarkable is waiting around the next corner.

People often assume that because I'm a rare book dealer, I'm only interested in first editions worth thousands of dollars. Not true. Would I be thrilled to uncover an overlooked seventeenth-century pamphlet tucked between gardening books? Absolutely. But that's not really why I go.

I go because I never know what I'll find. Maybe it's a forgotten family archive, an obscure local history, or a signed association copy that somehow escaped notice. Maybe it's simply a book I loved as a child that I haven't seen in decades. Every shelf offers the possibility of surprise, and that's what keeps me coming back.

Some of my favorite discoveries have come from places where no one expected them: a flea market, a church rummage sale, a dusty shelf in a small-town bookstore. Those moments remind me that history doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it waits patiently for someone curious enough to notice.

So yes, this trip is about family and friends. It's about conversations that pick up right where they left off, and making new memories in familiar places.

But somewhere between those visits, you'll probably find me wandering the aisles of the Book Barn, convincing myself that I don't have room in my suitcase for another book. And then, inevitably, figuring it out.

After all, you never know what piece of history is waiting on the next shelf.

Happy hunting,

Andrea