This won't help you, but even if you have a receipt and it's within 30 days, you can't do a return for cash anymore at Borders -- they give you a gift card for the value instead. Except it's not even a "gift card," it's a "return card." And they do that to circumvent this awesome CA law that says retailers must redeem gift cards for cash when the value on them is $10 or less.

Sorry, no help. Just wanted to pile on the big chains.

You might try Walmart or Costco. They used to have pretty liberal return policies (although they don't have a huge selection of books, so you're probably SOL there).

Do you know where it actually came from? It seems sneaky to me to knowingly bring it back to somewhere else. Think of it less as a paperweight than as a future gift you'll be giving someone (in a different circle, of course) and now don't need to buy.

I'm pretty sure it's from Borders, since my mom is always getting coupons from them. It's a book with enough local interest that I don't feel bad about adding another one to a store's inventory, as it will probably sell (eventually). If I see a copy at Walmart or Costco, I might try that, but I don't know if it had that wide of a release.