Book sale marathon (continued)

(Previous posts are here, here and here.)

Saturday morning, before our Maness family reunion, I slipped over to the High Point Library's used book sale. One of the librarians told me they had really cleaned out the stacks, and it was true. The room was so crammed full of books that volunteers were constantly unpacking boxes under the tables and stuffing books in any empty spaces the buyers left behind.

The sale was a treasure trove of nonfiction. I wish I could have arranged to buy the remainders — I could have started my own book store with all those topics! — but alas, somebody else had beat me to it.

The history section caught me right as I came in the door. After browsing through those I remembered I was supposed to be home cooking, so I worked my way around the entire room as quickly as I could through the crowd. My hands were full and my arm was still sore, so I had to pile books in the staff room. 

I ended up with biographies and memoirs of Mark Twain, Empress Josephine and Charles Lindbergh. I started to put some books back, thinking I had gone crazy to get so many. But when I saw that paperbacks were five for a dollar, I let myself have whatever I wanted. The only thing wrong was that, as much as I love HPL, when I saw their "Discarded" stamp across the title page of the 100-year-old book on Josephine, I almost fainted. Hopefully it was done by one of the many one-day volunteers and not a librarian.

Among the paperbacks, I stocked up on foreign language guides, from Swahili to Arabic. They had a lot of French literature, too. I made it home in time to cook nostalgic food for our family reunion.

I used to think that if I ever had a book store, I would specialize in antique books. I still think that I would have some, and specialize in history— especially Quaker history and genealogy. But now I want to have a variety of books, used and new, and take advantage of different collections I come across, like all of this science fiction.

Even though the sale at Archdale Library was over, they continued it as a bag sale. I stopped by last week and again today.

Like the Hinshaw church sale, Archdale Library seemed to be heavy on Science Fiction Book Club this year, and I put several in my bag. I brought home a variety of nonfiction, too, from stock car racing to Hopi legends. Since the bag sale was such a good bargain, I picked up whatever caught my eye, with visions of becoming a bookseller.