BOOK SALE

Last weekend was the –do dodo dodo do- book sale!  (I hope that came across as a peppy, d0o-wop song, because that’s how I sang it as I typed it.)

$10 for all the books you can cram into a brown paper bag on Sunday:  my grand total for 2013 was either 36 or 37.  There was also the Saturday haul, resulting in a number of choice reads.  They also had some grab-bag type boxes filled with children’s paperback books for $10 on Saturday.  Amber and I decided to split one of those, and when we opened it on Saturday night it contained over two hundred books.  Amber, Kellaura, and I spend at least an hour going through them.  After we split them up, so for us, some for friends, some to donate somewhere, I gave the boys a few to read, because everyone gets a book sale treat.  The rest are stashed away in my closet, to be doled out throughout the year.

It always feels like the best book sale ever.  This year, there were more books than ever, even a “treasure hunt” section full of boxes of books that I’m assuming the volunteers just didn’t have time to sort.  After our final sorting and packing of bags on Sunday, we met up with our families for the big reveal at the park across from the convention center.  I wait all year for the sorting, packing, and revealing.  It wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful of a weekend if I didn’t get to share the excitement with my friends and see their finds.

Ah, the glorious finds of the book sale!  After I pick through the books for a few days in the kitchen, I’m going back to my plan from last year of keeping my brown bag next to my bed for a few months.  I think last year was the year I read the most book sale books.  But one of the beautiful things about the book sale is the timing.  It’s okay if a book sits on the shelf for years until it’s the right time to read it.  Example:

Years ago, when Trent and I lived in our apartment, I picked up a (non-fiction) book from the library about a writer who had a giant pig named Christopher Hogwood.  The author, Sy Montgomery, had also written a book called Walking with the Great Apes, about three woman who, guess it, studied apes.  She talks about writing the ape book in the pig book, which I read shortly before the first book sale we ever went to, seven years ago.  I picked up a copy of Walking with the Great Apes at the first book sale and it’s sat on the bookshelf ever since.  I’ve never been in the mood to read it, but I knew one day I would be.  Recently I read one of Jane Goodall’s books, and after watching YouTube videos of chimps, went straight to the bookshelf for Montgomery’s book, which I am currently reading.

I also picked up a big, glossy photo book of apes on bag day this year.  And thus we are all connected in the great book sale circle of life.