Want a book? Make them an offer

Brothers Tom (left) and Brian Nealon let customers barter for their books on Thursdays at their West Roxbury bookstore. (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)

In a small shop on West Roxbury's Centre Street, a pair of brothers are finding a creative way to deal with today's harsh retail climate.

Brian and Tom Nealon, co-owners of the used bookstore Pazzo Books, have started Barter Thursdays, giving shoppers a two-hour opportunity, from 1 to 3 p.m., to trade things they no longer need for used books.

"We think it'll make people feel better about the economy," said older brother Tom, 37. "We want to get ahead of the curve with all that's happening on Wall Street."

The 5 1/2-year-old store moved from its Roslindale digs to West Roxbury about three months ago, and Barter Thursdays is the first event the owners have launched at the store's new location. Pazzo, which means crazy in Italian, carries more than 20,000 titles - everything from children's books to antiquarian fiction - with its largest collections in contemporary literary fiction and scholarly titles.

The brothers, who grew up in Westchester, N.Y. (Tom attended UMass Amherst), say that Pazzo has a long history of trading books for books, a common practice in the used book business.

They have also traded books for other items, like the small oval aisle signs hanging from the ceiling that direct customers to the store's different sections. In what Tom called a "three-way barter," the brothers enlisted a friend to find someone who could cut the signs for them. Both the friend and sign cutter received books in the deal.

But the Nealons won't take just anything in trade. According to Tom, they once had to rebuff a customer who attempted to give them a bag of fudge for a pile of books.

"We would only take meat from a butcher," said Brian, 27. "You can't come in and be like, 'I've got this bag of chicken breasts.' "

According to a posting on the Pazzo blog that announced Barter Thursdays, the preferred items run the gamut from diapers (for Tom's 16-month-old daughter) to padded envelopes (to send books to people who purchase them online) to canned foods (long shelf life).

But the brothers will consider goods not on the list, as well as services, for trade, too.

Though no one came to barter during the first two events, held Oct. 2 and 9, Brian said the pre-holiday season is typically slow. He said they hope to continue the event and that they believe the barter economy is still very much alive, especially in places like New England and the Southeast, where swap meets still occur.

"It's easier in towns that are built for walking," Tom said, noting that many of the customers who come into Pazzo just happen upon it while wandering along Centre Street.

According to Tom, another shop in the area, the Reliable Trading Post, also accepts trades and has been doing so for years.

"It's definitely not as weird a thing as people think," Brian said. "It broadens the value of things. But it is less structured and it happens by accident."

Kimberly Sanfeliz can be reached at ksanfeliz@globe.com.