NEW CHAPTER: Acorn Books "blowout sale" ends dozen years at Market Place antique mall

50% off already discounted prices

COLUMBIA, Mo 3/22/14 (Paid Ad) -- When Market Place Antique Mall owner Ron Sterchi announced he was closing shop after nearly 12 years, Ken and Linda Green had a choice:  move more than 15,000 books on every topic under the booklover's sun to a new location -- or hold a blow-out, month-long sale.

After 27 years in various Columbia locations, the Acorn Books owners decided on the sale.  While Acorn will continue selling online and at Lakota Coffee in downtown Columbia, it will no longer have a walk-in, bricks-and-mortar store.

The Greens are offering Acorn's vast Market Place library -- already steeply discounted -- at 50% off until the end of this month.  

"Vast" may be an understatement.  Buyers and browsers will find 18 shelves of military books; 12 shelves of books for kids; 18 shelves of Americana; 15 shelves of religion/spirituality/and self-help guides; and thousands more titles on gardening, nature, fiction, mystery, romance, Westerns, sci-fi, art, photography, animals, pets, music, and film. 

Used book stores like Acorn offer some of the best deals around -- 25 to 80 percent discounts on a product that never ages:  the written word, in books Ken Green described as "carefully chosen" for a Columbia Daily Tribune profile.  

At one time, the Greens had three locations and smaller satellites in book-friendly places.  Open for 16 years, their Lakota Coffee satellite will continue offering books for browsing, reading or buying.   "Used book junkie" and former Mizzou theatre professor Stephen Archer called Acorn Books "one of his favorite" book stores, stopping by its longtime South 9th St. store almost once a week. 

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Visit Acorn Books Monday thru Saturday, 10 am - 7 pm, Sunday from 11 am - 6 pm
Marketplace Antique Mall
1100 Business Loop 70 W, just west of Moser's Grocers
573-449-8030

Acorn sells online as "Cornacres" at Half.com and Abe Books.

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Ken and Linda Green's love of books comes as no surprise.   Both are former teachers -- Ken at Indiana's Wabash College; the College of William and Mary; Drake University;  and France's Academie Internationale d'Ete;  Linda at Children’s House Montessori in Columbia.   Linda  joined Ken in what would become a decades-long passion for finding just the right books at sales around the country. 

Acorn Books takes its name from the saying, "Great oaks from little acorns grow."  From an acorn 27 years ago -- 10,000 books in their basement -- the Greens built an oak:  mutliple brick-and-mortar stores and Internet storefronts from which tens of thousands of books have found new homes.         

The couple has also built a significant community presence, helping with diverse causes from municipal government to charity book sales.  Acorn Books may be Columbia's biggest donor of used books to sales for good causes. 

For now, Columbia residents have just a few more days to enjoy Acorn's personal service and unique selection at Market Place.  "We have a very high-quality stock because Ken is very particular about what he puts on the shelves," Linda told the Trib, about the secret ingredient that has helped make Acorn Books a Columbia favorite. 

-- The preceding is a paid Heart Beat designer ad.