This morning I went on a delightful little birthday outing with a few delightful friends. We ventured out from the familiar (if not exactly safe) embrace of New Haven up to The Book Barn in Niantic. It was like a happy dream -- thousands of old books organized into different little stalls and carts across a block or so of property (crime novels in this shanty, classics across the way on that wagon, etc.), interspersed with benches for reading and cats for petting. Can you imagine anything better? (If you can, then maybe we can't be really good friends.)
I picked up quite a few dollar tomes I've been meaning to read but haven't had on hand, as well as some other books I hadn't known I'd been meaning to read but now realize I definitely had to have been. If you find yourself in the proximate neighborhood of the Connecticut coast, I can't recommend this little bibliophile's paradise highly enough. To fully optimize your experience, I would suggest going on a crisp yet sunny autumn afternoon while wearing a scratchy wool sweater and sipping from a thermos full of hot cider.
