Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Mining the gold at a used book sale

Words to trekkers headed to the state's largest: Arrive early, take plenty of totes and listen to a friendly recommendation.

By Chris Sherman
Published October 7, 2007

Book sale

The Friends of the Library of Alachua County book sale takes place at 430-B N Main St., Gainesville, Saturday through Oct. 17. The spring sale is April 19-23. For information, go to www.acldfol.org or call (352) 375-1676.

--- 

One bag was not enough for me.

My friend Chris made do with just one, but he has been to the Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale before. In 20-odd years, he has missed Florida's biggest book sale only a few times. By now, he's selective, very selective.

He spotted Snow by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and 1929, a new bio of jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. With seven more books, they barely made a bulge in his satchel.

Books that were once his may have been among those shelved in the big yellow building on N Main Street. All year long professors, students and legions of other readers drop books, records, tapes, games and old prints in the stainless steel drop boxes. More come from library leftovers and the estates of deceased book lovers.

In a university town, that's a treasure trove.

On a fine Saturday morning in April, the donations numbered 300,000 books. The book sale is as organized as the Dewey Decimal System, and all the numbers are impressive.

Take prices. They start with green dots for 25 cents and move up by quarters through hardcover Danielle Steel and Tom Clancy for $1.50 or so, and then to prime stuff in "Higher Priced Fiction." Not for everyone, as one shopper said: "Good books, but they're $2!"

So you can wait. The sale lasts five days, and prices slowly drop by half and, on the last day, to 10 cents. Every author a dime novelist.

Despite or because of those prices, the spring sale brought in a record $136,000. Yes, there are enough books for a second sale, Saturday through Oct. 17. The sales take in about a quarter-million dollars a year for the county's public library and literacy programs.

I was a book sale newbie and brought the one canvas tote. When Chris offered a second, I didn't hesitate. So perhaps 10 of my books are his fault.

We arrived at 8:55 a.m. on the Saturday of the last sale. The line was a block long. Twenty-three chairs, boxes and camp stools were lined up at 5 p.m. Friday.

My two bags looked puny. Most of the people in line brought several liquor boxes plus backpacks, laundry baskets and suitcases.

At that hour we were motley: Our shirts, bags and caps rooted for the Gators, Procrit, Paul Taylor Dance Company and UC Davis Pomology. (If you didn't know that's fruit science, stop for a dictionary.) Volunteers with clipboards cruised the line to preapprove checks.

Doors opened, and in minutes we snaked in to face a maze of plywood book tables and shelves the size of a fieldhouse.

One of the first books in my bags was certainly Chris' fault: Quincunx, an intricate 800-pager considered a modern Bleak House. "This is an amazing book," he said.

I don't refuse much at $2, and even less at 50 cents.

A corps of book-loving volunteers 300 strong streamlined book buying to eliminate inhibitions or hesitation. For months they had sorted donations into 50 categories, down to camping, fishing, former British Empire, chick lit and erotic lit (Anita Shreve made the latter).

In 90 minutes my bags were full, and I took the express lane, for pikers with 20 books or fewer. Most join the long line, kicking bags and boxes along the floor from the back of the building to main checkout, five lanes painted on the floor like a DMV office. The truly serious use the checkout for five boxes or more.

For me, two armloads of reference books, architecture and foreign mysteries were $27. Deal.

Then I spotted the corner curiosity shoppe of first editions and rare books, with a separate cash register. Two bucks got me a miniature of The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan's 1915 Scottish spy classic, and the autobiography of Edward "Bok Tower" Bok.

After the sale, as we pored over our finds, Chris told me he hadn't known about Quincunx until a stranger touted it to him a few years ago - at the book sale.

When readers share favorite old reads, it makes books cheap - and all the more valuable.

Chris Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or csherman@sptimes.com.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 14:22:12]