Dark Star Books

Books

Used Books

Dark Star carries over 40,000 used books, and we get more in everyday! Our used book sections span every area of interest. Our fiction sections include Mysteries, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Terror, Romances and Literature. We also carry an extensive children’s book section for readers of all ages, including hard-to-find classic reads in our “Collectable Kids” area. The non-fiction categories are even more expansive, with History and Travel books covering all ages and locales of the planet; Medicine and Psychology sections for the inner workings of the body and the mind; Philosophy, Religion and Metaphysics books exploring all aspects of human belief and wisdom; Politics and Current Events to fuel any round-table discussion, as well as Biographies, Military History, Art and Science. No matter your tastes or interests, we have the books to match – at great used prices!

We Buy Books

We do buy books from our customers as well, for cash or for credit that can be used for used books. If you have books that you are interested in selling, give us a call and drop by first and let us know the kind of books that you have and we’ll let you know if we’d be interested in them. Here are some guidelines:

Please call before bringing in your books. There are times when we are too busy to accept books, or are already over-loaded with other books that folks have brought us. Calling first saves time and gas money!
Bring in two boxes or shopping bags full of books at a time. While some books are easy to appraise a value on, others take a little more legwork. Limiting the amount of the books you bring in allows us to give you a price for your books more quickly.
In most cases, it takes us about a week or two to go through books and make sure we give you the fairest price for them. If you requested cash for your books, a check will be mailed out to you. If you wanted credit for used books, we will keep a record of that credit in the store.
We do not take Encyclopedias, Reader’s Digest condensed books, Harlequin or other series romances, magazines or other non-book memorabilia.
We are always looking for recent releases (within the last year or so) from fiction authors of all genres, as well as non-fiction books of current interest. Strange, esoteric and odd non-fiction books are always welcome as well.
If you have any questions, please call or email and ask away! If you have large quantities of books that you are looking to sell quickly, we may be able to arrange an appointment with the store owner.

New Books

We also carry just released New Books for those of you who can’t wait to read the latest offerings from their favorite authors or the latest in current events. We’re always getting in new fiction from authors like Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Nick Hornby, Laurell Hamilton, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, Tamora Pierce, David Sedaris and many others. We also stock plenty of books on current events, politics and other areas of interest. Our new book selection is growing every day, and if there’s something you’d like to see us carry, please let us know!

Special Orders

Are you looking for something we don’t have? Not to worry, we can special order practically any book that is in print, and track down almost all of the ones that aren’t. There isn’t any charge for special orders. Just tell us what you’re looking for, and if it’s a book in print that our distributors have in stock we’ll put it on our next order and it’ll arrive within a week or so – faster if you need it sooner. For out of print books the process it may take a little longer to track down your request, but we will keep in contact with you and let you know our progress.

Shipping

We ship books worldwide via the USPS and the wide variety of shipping options that they have. Whether it’s a book you found while on vacation here in Yellow Springs, a find you’d like to send to a friend or family member or a special order you’d like to be waiting for you while you’re away on vacation, we can get it to you for very little cost. Just tell us where you’d like to send your books and we’ll quote you a price and time. It’s that simple!

Featured Books

Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich

In her new book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, astute social commentator Barbara Ehrenreich takes a hard look at the idea that you can have what you want – health, wealth, happiness – if only you can manage to think positively enough. A small army of writers, motivational speakers, religious leaders, doctors and university professors have made an industry out of promoting this doctrine of Positive Thought. Her interest in the topic comes from personal experience: In 2000, after Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, the resounding message she received from the established support community was that she must embrace the illness as a wonderful opportunity for spiritual transformation – ridding herself of the anger and despondency that she felt over having a life-threatening disease whose treatment is an ordeal – or else, lower her chances of survival. Instead of getting positive, Ehrenreich to take a closer look at the origins, manifestations, and consequences of American Positive Thinking.

The result is a fascinating examination of how a 19th-century reaction against Calvinist gloom produced such diverse but ideologically related outcomes as the Church of Christian Science, the writings of Norman Vincent Peale (The Power of Positive Thinking) and Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People) and finally the collection of ideas known as “Positive Thinking” that currently enjoys widespread influence in the boardroom, doctor’s office, mega-church and even university.

Ehrenreich makes a number of compelling observations. She argues that while the founders of what became Positive Thinking intended to reject Calvinism’s damaging thought-patterns, they actually retained one of its cornerstones, the idea that you must constantly work on yourself to achieve a certain “correct” state of mind (more on that in the book.) Perhaps her central criticism is that, while the idea that you can achieve anything in your life through strenuous positive thinking might be great if it were true, the logical flip-side of this belief is that if you are sick, impoverished, or unhappy you have no-one to blame but yourself. This, she writes, has profoundly troubling social implications: if every person is individually responsible for his or her destiny, why work to change social conditions and fight for economic justice? Finally, she finds that Positive Thinking played a significant role in the downfall of the American economy: in the early part of the decade economists, bankers and brokers ignored (negative!) warnings about the housing bubble and other factors, eventually causing the collapse that has brought us the Great Recession.

I positively recommend Bright-Sided to anyone who thinks they would enjoy a timely, lively look at a consequential American phenomenon.

– Sehvilla

A Lion In the House

“A Lion the House” is the companion text to the award-winning documentary of the same name from Yellow-Springs filmmakers Steve Bognar & Julia Reichert, edited by Margaret McGurk. The Book gives an in-depth look into the lives of the families featured in the film waging war against cancer. In this book, the families reflect on what they lived through as their children endured the harrowing treatments that are the very best the scientific world has to offer. Enriching the families’ stories are the compassionate and insightful words of many doctors, nurses and other professionals who cared for the children. The filmmakers offer a behind-the-scenes, insider’s account of the making of A Lion in the House. It was an eight year journey brought to triumphant completion despite obstacles and setbacks so severe the film could have been abandoned many times.