Before we share info about this month’s book, we want to recognize that this month’s “Community Kindness Sponsor” (which helps offset the cost of the extra 20 books we hide after scavenger hunt weekend every month – the “random act of kindness” books) is our friend Talia Root! We are so grateful for her support in creating a bookish community rooted in kindness. Here’s a special note from her:

“I’m a native Tucsonan and have a deep love for our beautiful community. I am proud to serve on the Board of Directors for Ballet Tucson, and I’m also a parent of a little one who attends The School of Ballet Tucson. I’m passionate about ensuring our beautiful community has access to world-class dance, literature, and art. Enjoy the books, my fellow book lovers!“

Do you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us as a Community Kindness Sponsor in 2027 ($250)? We are all set for 2026, but are starting to look ahead to 2027 (because, as we know, time flies!). Please send us an email (tucsontomegnome[at]gmail.com), and we can send you some information 🙂

AND NOW, for what you’ve been waiting for: all about this month’s hidden book!

About the book, from Graywolf Press:

“Two auditors for the US egg industry go rogue and conceive a plot to steal a million chickens in the middle of the night—an entire egg farm’s worth of animals. Janey and Cleveland—a spirited former runaway and the officious head of audits—assemble a precarious, quarrelsome team and descend on the farm on a dark spring evening. A series of catastrophes ensues.

Deb Olin Unferth’s wildly inventive but utterly plausible novel is a heist story of a very unusual sort. Swirling with a rich array of voices, Barn 8 takes readers into the minds of these renegades: a farmer’s daughter, a former director of undercover investigations, hundreds of activists, a forest ranger who suddenly comes upon forty thousand hens, and a security guard who is left on an empty farm for years. There are glimpses twenty thousand years into the future to see what chickens might evolve into on our contaminated planet. We hear what hens think happens when they die. In the end, the cracked hearts of these indelible characters, their earnest efforts to heal themselves, and their radical actions will lead them to ruin or revelation.

Funny, whimsical, philosophical, and heartbreaking, Barn 8 ultimately asks: What constitutes meaningful action in a world so in need of change? Unferth comes at this question with striking ingenuity, razor-sharp wit, and ferocious passion. Barn 8 is a rare comic-political drama, a tour de force for our time.”

About the author, Deb Olin Unferth:

“Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Earth 7 (June 2026), Barn 8, currently in development for film by Searchlight Pictures, and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper’s, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, and fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.

She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers’ Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a South Texas penitentiary. Originally from Chicago, she lives in Austin with the philosophy professor Matt Evans.

Why I selected Barn 8 for the August 2026 Giveaway:

• Sometimes it’s fun to hide a book that seems absolutely ridiculous. This book is funny, strange, unexpected, and completely committed to its absurdly improbable premise (they are going to steal how many chickens?!?!). But it also asks a serious question: what happens when we stop accepting a system simply because it’s the system we’ve inherited?
• This book is surprisingly relevant to current events re: the commercial food systems in the United States. At a moment when many of us are thinking more carefully about where our food comes from (and when so many food recalls make large-scale food systems harder to trust…), this story pulls back the curtain and examines the complex commercial industries that get food onto our tables.
• I love a book that can make you laugh while (perhaps) challenging your assumptions. This book takes on factory farming, animal welfare, corporate agriculture, and activism – – – all delivered via a crazy caper story filled with eccentric characters (both lovable and deeply dislikable).
• This book might have you falling in love with chickens. The novel’s many perspectives (including those of the hens themselves) make us reconsider whose lives we notice, and whose we overlook. BWAWK.
• At its heart, I love this book because it’s a story about people who decide that “the way things are” isn’t good enough. The activists in this story are far from perfect, and their grand plan is truly bonkers, but their willingness to act (and to imagine that things could be different…) makes this a surprisingly hopeful book.