Book Sail Away

Well, there were no starred restaurants or destinations on the Feeder’s agenda this weekend. This is pretty much what he looked at Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday:

 

Yes, those are thousands of books in the Non Fiction building of the annual Friends of the  (St. Mary's County) Library Book Sale.  Kind of the culmination of a year’s long effort to put on the event that brings monies to the libraries.  Last year we donated over $20,000 to them, just from selling the books. People donate books for the sale all year long, and they are housed in the back end of the Leonardtown Library (you can drop them by anytime the library is open).  Volunteers spend many hours sorting them into boxes for fiction, non-fiction, children’s, and the occasional “rare” finds. Then the week end before the actual sale, the books are “migrated” to the fairgrounds.

 

 

Several trips are necessary to get them there with the help of pickups and more volunteers

 

Once there, they are delivered to the appropriate building, and even more volunteers (get the picture here?) take them from the boxes, further categorize them and arrange them on tables

 

That table is one of the feeders favorite locations.. lots to look at

 

While there are hundreds of cookbooks, wine references, and "church lady cookbooks" to paw through in the main building, I did take a minute to go over to the “rare and unusual” building and found a couple books of interest (to me).  I have no idea how these wind up in a book sale, somebody decides they don’t want them I guess.. 

 

I do, and was willing to plunk down the 12 whole bucks to take them home.  Amazing.

The Boquet is a “gastronomes tour” of the provinces of France highlighting restaurants of note, but it also has wonderful pen and ink drawings in it

 

It’s a bit dated, but what a beautiful thing to hold in your hand.  We are currently signed up for a trip to Normandy next summer, so it will be of great use.

So mostly I sit at the checkout table (Friday 11 – 8; Saturday 9 – 5; Sunday 11 – 3), and take money for the purchases made (two bucks for a hardback, one for a “trade paperback”, little paperbacks fifty cents).  There are virtually new volumes that get sold for those prices.   Friday was “members only” day, and that is the day when only members of the Friends and the “dealers” (who gladly "join") are allowed to shop.  The dealers arrive with tubs and their little scanning devices that gives them a retail price in an instant, and they fill up the tubs. We had one dealer that left after giving us over a thousand dollars, and that was just Non-Fiction alone.  I would hesitate to guess what they will realize.. 

But the fun is the small children that find a treasure and ask Mommy if they can have fifty cents and are just thrilled when they can.  A book of their own.  Maybe it will lgenerate a spark..

And on Sunday, when the sale ends,  there are still many, many books left.  At this point more volunteers show up (from a local civic organization) and load EVERYTHING into giant cardboard boxes called “Gaylords”

 

Which are then put into rent-a-trucks

 

They are then transported to an organization that sorts and sells some, and then the bulk go overseas to places that desperately need books.

And so ended a week in the life of a book.  And next year we’ll do it all over again!!  Meanwhile MFO and I were pretty tuckered out, so we didn't worry much about getting

DFD