Note: To those of you who noticed an anomalous 4-year-old post in your blog feed yesterday, sorry for the confusion. I was adding tags to all the whole book sale posts so I could have a handy link to them all below, and voila! Somehow the 2013 date on one of them got changed so that it appeared as a brand new post. No idea what happened, and I couldn't do it again if I tried. Oops!
There's been a long,
terrible drought in the realm of book sale posts on this blog, but at long last
the clouds are a-gatherin'!
Sadly, the Friends
of the San Francisco Public Library announced at last year's autumn Big Book
Sale that they were discontinuing the spring book sales they had held for
several years. (Perhaps they were just too depressed after the election last
year to get themselves together for a spring sale?) It's been a hard, dreary
road to this year's sale, but we are finally nearly there. The member preview
is coming up in less than two weeks, on September 19th, and the public days are
September 20-24. Although the preview is exciting and fun, I can also note that
volunteers continue putting out boxes and boxes of additional books even on the
later days of the sale, so it's definitely still worth visiting even if you
can't make the preview (or don't feel you can afford a membership).
If you happen to be
in the Bay Area, you should really make it a priority. I've posted about my
experiences at the sales for several years now—see here
to take a stroll down memory lane—and it's always a thrilling, albeit slightly
crazy, adventure. I've heard that people actually travel from miles—and even
states—around to visit this sale, and with good reason!
Full details about
the sale are available here.
And there's a fascinating video I'd never seen before, showing the massive
setup for the sale, here.
Of course, if you
live in the U.K. or Australia or South Africa and have foolishly determined to
be practical and not spend thousands of dollars in order to find some wonderful
book bargains (there's no accounting for people's priorities…), then fear not, I'll
be happy to share my own experiences here soon. In fact, I might just get a bit
of a first-hand glimpse of this year's setup. Stay tuned!
Looking forward to seeing what you find this year. 500,000 secondhand books is my idea of heaven!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sue!
DeleteAs a librarian, I must say this tale of the dream book sale is quite tantalizing. Last week, our Eagle Rock Friends had a "pop-up" sale for three afternoons, as the donations had been so many - nothing like you guys, but it was lovely to see people lined up and buying bags and bags of books.....naturally, I came home with a bag myself, even though the April bag had not yet been unpacked completely. To Scott, and all my book loving and reading colleagues out there, it makes me very happy to see there is still a place in our world for BOOKS! Yes, real paper and binding books! AND for us, it is the children's section that is the hottest! Gives me hope for the future! AND MANY THANKS to Our Scott, as he fans the flames of book love (and lust) with his blog, so we keep reading and hunting for MORE BOOKS!
ReplyDeleteTom
Thanks, Tom!
DeleteSee you there! Great write up!
ReplyDeleteDeborah at Bookbarmy.com
Thanks, Deborah. Looking forward to it!
DeleteI love the set-up video! I have just copied it to my daughter with the comment that she can be very glad I don't live in San Francisco! She already spends a lot of time trying to persuade me to sell the books I promised to dispose off nearly five years ago when we moved.
ReplyDeleteThere's always room for a few more books, Gil! Or if not, you can always build an extension... :-)
DeleteMon dieu! Truckloads in. Shopping carts out!! Heaven in San Francisco.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pretty chaotic version of heaven, Susan, but it is great fun. The anticipation is building!
DeleteHow exciting! I look forward to your post about what you pick up, especially as I will definitely be up to date with my blog reading really, really soon (right ...).
ReplyDelete