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Solid couple of days in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. ☀️📚 Another 23 boxes loaded today, bringing the trip total to 105 boxes headed back to Bend. 🤓 What really stands out here is the kind of innovative, curious, deeply thoughtful people who live and work in this region — and the books they leave behind reflect that spirit. Shelves shaped by engineers, artists, professors, writers, and restless thinkers. University press titles mixed with strange, brilliant niche paperbacks that only exist because someone followed an idea all the way through. The hunt continues tomorrow. 📚🔎

One week in. 70 boxes deep. 🤓📦😍 Many more miles ahead. The U-Haul is filling up with carefully selected stacks — fiction, philosophy, poetry, economics, mysticism, history — the kinds of books that feel discovered rather than acquired. 📦 From hidden warehouse aisles to quiet suburban stops… from classic paperbacks (Tolkien, Zamiatin) to sharp contemporary fiction… from cult spiritual titles to heavyweight history. Tonight we’re staying in Silicon Valley as we slowly make our way north. So many cool and interesting titles in this area. The culture shapes the shelves — the universities, the engineers, the founders, the psychedelics, the philosophy, the risk taking and optimism. You feel deep tech next to Zen, economics beside mysticism, Tolkien stacked over AI and systems theory. It’s capital, code, and consciousness all layered together. #UsedBooks #BookSourcing #WeLoveUsedBooks #IndependentBookstore #BayAreaBooks

Bay Area Book Sourcing — Day 4 of 13. 48 boxes. 📦📦📦📦📦📦📦📦📦📦📦📦 These books will boost our shelves for the upcoming busy spring and summer seasons! Highway miles behind us. Snow-capped peaks fading in the rearview. Now browsing the aisles — wooden shelves, tight corners, warehouses, and rows and rows of books. A sidewalk sign promising “Gently Used Books. Great Prices.” (we agree). Long shelves of American history. Literature sections that stretch farther than expected. We found: • Vintage paperbacks with soul like… “A Hot Fairy Tale” • Clean modern hardcovers ready for new hands • Rarely spotted gems like 1984 and Brave New World 😉 • Vintage Simone de Beauvoir stacked next to Hannah Arendt • Unexpected surprises hiding in jacket flaps ($10!) By late afternoon, the van is starting to fill up. 48 so far — each one a future Big Story shelf, table stack, or face-out moment. Tonight I’m staying in Berkeley. Nine more days to go. #BookSourcing #BayAreaFinds #IndependentBookstore #UsedBooks

⚡️All Used + Thoughtfully Curated⚡️ From Bloch’s Psycho to Huxley’s Brave New World, from Tolkien’s letters to Nate Silver on risk, from cult language to psychedelics, from vegan flavor to the language of symbols — this is what a real bookstore looks like. No algorithm. No warehouse sameness. Just thoughtful curation across fiction, philosophy, food, politics, spirituality, and the strange edges in between.

🌀 JUST ARRIVED (and rarely does): Used Junji Ito. 🌀 These don’t come through the shop often — and when they do, they vanish fast. Uzumaki. Frankenstein. Gyo. Smashed. Yon & Mu. Modern horror manga at its absolute finest: surreal, unsettling, obsessive, impossible to look away from. The kind of books that feel like artifacts. Beautiful. Disturbing. Addictive. Used. Sharp. Limited. Come grab them before they spiral back into the void. 🖤 #JunjiIto #Uzumaki #MangaHorror #UsedBooksFinds

Gus… keeping us company while we sort stacks, shelve treasures, and wind down the shop for the night. #ShopDog #BigStoryBookstore #StreetDogHero

🎶 Turntable Project Alert 🎶 ❌SOLD❌ Vintage Dual 502 belt-drive turntable — a sweet little piece of analog history. Cosmetically in very good condition, and absolutely begging for the love + time of someone who wants to bring it back to life and get it spinning again. ✨ Includes a new stylus 🛠️ Perfect weekend restoration/project deck 📍 A classic for the right vinyl soul $40 (as is) Stop by in person to check it out. #Dual502 #VintageHiFi #TurntableProject #AnalogForever #VinylCommunity

We like it dark! 🖤 Ghost stories. Cannibals. Stoics. Dragons. The beautiful, the unsettling, the obsessive. A stack of books for long nights and brave readers!

👁️📘 1984 Two wildly different (and equally striking) editions of George Orwell’s dystopian classic just landed at Big Story. One is a sleek Milestone Edition paperback — bold, graphic, almost pop-modern in its typography. The other: that iconic watchful eye hardcover design, pure retro surveillance aesthetic. Same prophetic novel. Two totally unique physical objects. We love when a book this legendary shows up in editions that feel like design pieces as much as literature. #BigStoryBooks #GeorgeOrwell #1984 #CoverArtLove

✨ Collector’s Editions from Azeroth ✨ A rare set of World of Warcraft PC Collector’s Edition boxes just landed at Big Story. Each one represents a different era in Azeroth — the legendary fantasy world where WoW has lived for two decades. Available now: ⚔️ Cataclysm Collector’s Edition — $95 🛡️ Warlords of Draenor Collector’s Edition — $80 🌿 Legion Collector’s Edition — $105 Collector-grade nostalgia, design, and mythmaking — on the shelves now. #WorldOfWarcraft #WoWCollectorsEdition #Azeroth #GamingHistory

Stacks like this arriving daily. Local titles like Nosler’s Reloading Guide and Riding Central Oregon Horse Trails sitting right alongside frequently asked for books— Maus, The Creative Act, Shōgun, Becoming Supernatural, Dopamine Nation. And then the curveballs we love: Hawaiian Mythology, Restorative Practices of Wellbeing, an Illustrated Glossary of Snow and Ice, and plenty more that don’t fit neatly into any one lane. All used. All thoughtfully curated.

Tonight at Big Story we’re processing through newly arrived used books 📚 Every day brings a different collection through the door. We’re grateful to curate a shop that’s built this way: not by algorithms or bulk orders, but by paying attention to you—our community—one book at a time. #InBendOR #UsedBooks #IndependentBookstore #BookCuration

A summit of stories just arrived. 🏔️ Ice fields, first ascents, women on rope teams before the world made space for them, frozen frontiers, thin air philosophy, and the psychology of obsession. Not just mountaineering — human endurance, solitude, obsession, courage, and the geometry of risk. For climbers, dreamers, wanderers, and armchair alpinists. Now on the shelves at Big Story. 🧭

🎉 CELEBRATING 5 YEARS 🎉 Anniversary Sale — Buy 2, Get 1 Free Wednesday 1/21 · Open 10–6 Five years ago, we ventured into something entirely new for us. We saw an opportunity—to step into a business we didn’t come from, but one we deeply believed in. A bookstore felt like a place where curiosity, community, and ideas could live in the real world. Over these five years, Big Story has become more than a shop. We’ve spent countless hours learning, sourcing books, following threads of interest, and engaging in thousands of mind expanding conversations sparked by what’s on these shelves. Conversations that jump between history, philosophy, fiction, science, and culture. What’s kept this place alive is a community of curious-minded readers and the many people who choose Bend as a vacation destination. People who browse slowly, ask good questions, and care about where their books come from. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who chooses to shop local and support independent bookstores—not out of obligation, but because they value spaces like this. Thank you to the regulars who know the aisles well, the first-time visitors who linger, and everyone who believes a bookstore can still be a cultural anchor—not just a transaction. Come browse, shop, and celebrate with us. We’re grateful you’re part of this story.

We ❤️ Used Books Fresh arrivals just landed—everything from hot newer titles to timeless classics in their genre. And yes… a standout: a first edition of John le Carré’s debut novel, Call for the Dead (1961). Almost new condition.

🖤 Shakespeare, the way history actually gave him to us. These aren’t just “old-looking books.” They are facsimiles of one of the most important objects in Western literature. Shakespeare’s plays were originally printed in the early 1600s as cheap, fragile pamphlets called quartos — meant to be read, folded, shared, and eventually destroyed. Most of them were. In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died, two of his fellow actors gathered his work and published what became known as the First Folio — the first collected edition of his plays. Without it, half of Shakespeare’s work would be lost forever. Today, fewer than 240 First Folios survive. Each one is worth $5–10 million. They live in vaults at the British Library, Oxford, Harvard, and a handful of private collections. So in the late 1800s and early 1900s (this one likely early 1900s), publishers created luxury facsimiles like this — using rag paper, hand-engraved plates, period typography, and ribbon bindings — so collectors and scholars could experience Shakespeare the way 17th-century readers did. The engravings you see here — Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Windsor Castle — were themselves made from Renaissance and 19th-century paintings, turning this into a copy of a copy of history. You’re not just reading Shakespeare. You’re holding how Shakespeare was preserved. This facsimile set: $95 📚✨ #Shakespeare #FirstFolio #BookHistory #LiteraryArtifacts

😍⚡️😍 Still unpacking boxes from our Bay Area run—and this is the kind of haul that reminds us why we do this. • A like-new 1980s Lord of the Rings hardcover book club set • Haruki Murakami first editions — 1Q84 and After the Quake • Vintage mid century science fiction with striking, two-color cover design • Terry Pratchett with unforgettable cover art (a rat on a cat, truly) • American Psycho — first edition, first printing. Yes. That one. We love finding editions like these—objects with history, intentional design, and stories that still carry weight decades later.

What do these all have in common? 🎧🏙️ They all orbit the 99% Invisible Book Club, where Roman Mars and Elliott Kalan took on The Power Broker — and turned a famously massive, intimidating book into a months-long shared deep dive. @99percentinvisible That series unpacked how Robert Moses reshaped New York (and American cities) without ever being elected — street by street, bridge by bridge. 📘 The Power Broker barely mentions Jane Jacobs — even though The Death and Life of Great American Cities became the philosophical counterweight to Moses’ vision. Add in the graphic biography of Moses and The 99% Invisible City, and you’ve got a full-circle look at how cities are designed, imposed, resisted, and lived in. If you loved the Book Club episodes, these belong together on your shelf. If you haven’t listened yet… this is your sign. #BigStoryBend #99PercentInvisible #99PIBookClub #ThePowerBroker #RomanMars ElliottKalan JaneJacobs UrbanDesign CityNerd MindExpandingBooks UsedBooks

Popular new releases. Hot classics. Cult favorites. Literary troublemakers. Fresh stacks just landed—timeless, subversive, unforgettable. Come browse what everyone’s still talking about (and arguing over). 📚🔥 #IndieBookstore #LiteraryClassics #CultClassics #BookshopVibes #ReadersOfInstagram

The Sandman — Absolute Edition 🖤 All four volumes. Like new. A modern myth in its definitive form — dream, death, memory, and ruin bound in black. These oversized editions do justice to the art, the scope, and the weight of the story. $300 for the complete four-volume set. Available now at Big Story. One set. No holds. Hashtags (dark, collector-clean): #TheSandman #NeilGaiman #GraphicNovelArt #AbsoluteEdition ComicBookCollecting ModernMythology BookstoreFinds UsedBooks BendOregon

Five boxes of lovely kids’ books landed today 📚✨ Here’s just a small sample—and the condition is incredible. (Truly rare for a haul of kids’ books.) We’re pricing and shelving today, so they’ll be hitting the floor fast. Stop in and add a few future favorites to your collection 💛 #BigStoryKids #IndependentBookstore #KidsBooks #PictureBooks EarlyReaders BookstoreFinds UsedBooks BendOregon ShopLocalBend

For the endlessly curious. 🧐🧠 A stack of nonfiction that challenges, inspires, and occasionally wrecks your worldview — featuring Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook (2004), raw and timeless, alongside Vans: Off the Wall, a visual history of skate culture, style, and rebellion. From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, A Little History of the World, and A History of the Vikings, to books on design, color, architecture, philosophy, and counterculture — these are titles that expand how you think and see the world.

Freshly Refreshed ✨ Our Curated Book Bundles are stocked up—stacked with intention and ready to go. From badass habits & mindset upgrades to must-read classics, each bundle is handpicked around a theme and meant to be read together. No guesswork. Just really good books. Perfect for gifting, discovering, or grabbing something smarter than you planned to. 📚🔥

Oversized Inspiration Incoming 📚✨ A fresh stack of used art, fashion, design, and lifestyle books just hit the floor—and this collection is big in every sense. From iconic photography and interiors to culture-shaping creatives, these are books meant to be lingered over. And yes… the Andy Warhol volume is GIANT. Truly oversized. Coffee-table legend status. Perfect for gifting, styling your space, or getting lost in visual inspiration on a winter afternoon. One-of-a-kind copies, once they’re gone, they’re gone. #UsedBooks #ArtBooks #FashionBooks #DesignBooks OversizedBooks CoffeeTableBooks VisualCulture BookstoreFinds