The Booksale to End All Booksales (until next year’s Booksale)
Some random thoughts after three-plus days of the 30th annual Friends of the Library Booksale:
–My favorite part is coming home with multiple bags of books and unpacking them on the living room floor like some alternate-universe Christmas morning when I’ve picked out all my own presents. For research purposes I calculated the original value of the books the wife and I spent 44 bucks on, and I came up with a conservative estimate of $750. What a bar-goon!
–My least favorite part is dragging those bags through the admirably swift-moving checkout line that wraps its way around the inside of the building at the Friday night “pre-sale.” I vow this is the last year I’ll be too proud to bring a wheeled implement to carry my books, as my arms were more sore from lugging my bags through the line than I was last Sunday after helping move thousands of boxes of product into the Fairgrounds.
–It’s fascinating to pay attention to recurring themes among the hundreds of thousands of titles that have been donated to the sale. My unscientific survey results reveal that many readers have tired of hating and fearing the Clintons, particularly based on the staggering number of copies of Dick Morris’s Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race that were available. It is comforting to know there will be plenty of kindling on hand for the next cold snap, though.
–I also saw a ton of copies of Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, which I’m guessing a number of book clubs may not have especially appreciated. There were an awful lot of William Faulker novels lying around as well, perhaps left over from Oprah’s 2005 “Summer of Faulkner”?
(On the other hand, maybe I’m just a jerk who too-possessively hangs on to books he’s already read.)
–The reaction of the super-helpful volunteers who rang up my purchases perfectly explains why I can never volunteer for that particular job at the Booksale. Upon seeing my pristine $1.00 copy of Stephen Colbert’s I Am America and So Can You and frantically inquiring what section I found it in, the volunteer cashier asked his partner, “How soon do we get a break?!” There’s just no way I could see all the fantastic titles pass me by without sprinting back out to the sale tables to hunt for more.
–Finally, I’d like to offer a general apology to any friends or colleagues I may have inadvertantly passed by without acknowledging during the sale. I suspect most of you, like me, were too busy with heads down scanning book titles to look up and have time to socialize, and it’s a wonder more people don’t get brained by head-to-head collisions during the Friday night frenzy. My own wife sadly gave up trying to make conversation with me while we waited in the checkout line that wound its way tantalizingly near the Humor, Fiction, and Magazine sections.
So it’s another Friends Booksale gone by, and another fresh set of challenges to find room to shove the dozens of books I brought home. I do have to admit I went back on Saturday while I was out “running errands,” and sure enough I came home with about 10 more fantastic titles. As I type this on Sunday afternoon, I’m also damn tempted to head back to the Fairgrounds to catch the “All-You-Can-Shove-In-A-Bag-For-$2″ red-light special . . . .
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The year after I kicked two boxes of books around the building through the check-out line was the last year I didn’t have my wheeled luggage. I’m getting too old to not use a wheelie, but I’m not too old to get all the books I can haul away. I’m like you I spread all my great finds all over the living room last night and I’m quite pleased with my selections. Thanks to the Metro friends for feeding my reading addiction for such a small sum of money.