Five Orange Stickers and a Dark Blue!

Today was the used book sale at the Richmond Memorial Library (the hometown library) and it was a Very Good Day there for me today – five orange stickers and a dark blue, which means that I got to leave with three hardcover and three soft-cover books for the beyond-a-bargain price of $2.75.  Yup, less than fifty cents per book.  One of the books was already on my to-buy list and two were by authors I have recently discovered and now love.

I love used book sales and used book sections of bookstores.  Of course I love the discounts – as a rabid book-buying addict, I love it when I can buy vast quantities of books guilt-free and only have to spend modest amounts of money.  But I love the treasure aspect even more.  Previously-owned books are special treats – you never know what you may find inside (see last week’s post for the joy of discovering notes or underlinings; it is always fascinating to me to see what other people like/find noteworthy about a book).  In addition to commentary, I have found bookmarks, business cards, interesting inscriptions, receipts, and even cash (although that was a library book, not a book-sale book – I was young, maybe eleven, when I found $3 in The World According to Garp at the same hometown library that hosted today’s book sale; I turned it in to the librarian who held it for two weeks to see if anyone called asking about it and when no one did, I got to keep it) inside the pages of books.

In addition, used book sales/sections offer the avid reader the peculiar joy of treasure hunting – you never know what genres, authors, or styles will be on offer at any given sale, and many a time I have found myself browsing topics that I would not normally have considered and stumbling upon incredible finds.  In that regard, used book sales/sections are akin to the bargain bins at large retailers.  It never ceases to amaze me what one can find in the “remainder” pile for a couple of bucks.  The hardcover that was on last month’s New York Times bestseller list for $27.95 can, through an accident of purchasing (or lack thereof), end up going for $3.99, and find itself in the same bin as bizarre, unusual and highly niche-oriented fiction and non-fiction that it is difficult to imagine ever appealed to more than fifteen people worldwide.

Often, a used book sale also offers the opportunity for a purge.  Yes, even I, obsessive collector and keeper of books, occasionally go through my personal library and cull out things that I have either read and disliked or tried to read multiple times and have never been able to make myself finish.  Usually, you can get some modest trade-in value for them – but even when you cannot, you get goodwill credit.  The purveyors of used books generally rely on donations, and I like thinking that I can, in some small way, help someone else find a treasure.  After all, the things I do not like are not universally bad (teehee – I am not the official determiner of what is a “good” book – although wouldn’t that be a GREAT job??) – they are just perhaps not to my taste.  So how great to think that the books that I do not want can find a good home somewhere else – kind of like puppies at the pound!

So if you find yourself in Batavia, NY on the first Thursday of the month, stop by the Richmond Memorial Library and check out the book sale for yourself.  It will be time well-spent, I assure you…  🙂