Book sale

I love library used book sales. They are a great place to pick up unread titles by authors you've enjoyed in the past, find childhood favorites, and collect copies of classics you've always meant to read or think you might want to reread someday. You can find real jewels at used book sales, and sorting through the semi-organized shelves (or boxes) can be half the fun. Helping the library and getting inexpensive books at the same time; I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

I went to a library book sale today when they were having a $5 bag special. Essentially, you could fill a bag up with just about any book at the sale for the small fee of $5 (they did have a separate section of higher priced books, but believe me there were plenty to choose from in the general section). This sort of special is also known as the "it's the last day of the sale and the volunteers really don't want to have to repackage and transport all these books again!" phenomenon. I honestly felt a little guilty, to walk away with a whole bag of books for just $5, but I took comfort in the fact that I was giving lots of old books a new home. At this sale, the majority of the books were donated, but a good number were novels that had been culled from the public library's collection. It's downright depressing to see "discarded" stamped in the front of a perfectly good book. I hope the books feel more appreciated on my bookshelf!

In total I took home 26 books for my $5, and the volunteers honestly seemed glad for me to lug them out of the building! Out of curiosity's sake I added up the original prices on the books afterwards. 6 of the 26 didn't have prices due to age or because they were missing their dust jackets, but the 20 that did came to a grand total of $259.89! Granted most of the books were in semi- to heavily used condition, but a couple appear surprisingly new. And I got some fantastic titles: two Daphne du Maurier novels, Dustin Long's Icelander which looks really interesting, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, the first Xanth novel, and a practically new copy of Tom Perrota's Little Children. All in all definitely an afternoon well spent!