Library Book Sales

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Thursday, February 1, 2001

Ryan

Library Book Sales


Library Book Sales

Sure, Barnes and Noble is OK and Amazon's not bad for finding the semi-rare book, but the greatest book-buying thrill comes for me at library book sales.

During college I went to a great one at Fredericksburg's downtown library (they had it twice a year). I'd often come home with two large boxes full of books for under $20. And a lot of these were out-of-print religion and philosophy texts, cheap paperbacks, and rare photo and art books. There's nothing quite like the smell of dusty books lined up sloppily on tables for 25 cents a piece. Especially when you come across that one "perfect" book and pay 1/50th of what it's really worth.

At a recent book sale I ran across a book whose title intrigued me: Eugene Field's Love Affairs of a Bibliomanic. Written in 1896 (and this edition published in 1905), Love Affairs... is a wonderfully fun story about a man obsessed with collecting books. And for $2.00, the find was all the better: from what I can tell, this book hasn't been printed in years (though it is available online via Project Gutenberg and as a Microsoft E-Book). This book hadn't even been read (many of the pages were still together and hadn't been cut apart) and on Alibris is currently going for nine times what I paid for it. Though not really "rare," it was still one of my better finds that day.

A good place to hunt down your own local book sales is BookSaleFinder.com. -ram


Comments
FROM: Robert
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 12:17:50PM
Sweet Enola Gay!!! I love the library book sales!!!

I went to one a few months back at the Fairfax City (VA) branch. The first night I walked out with a stack of books and records I could barely carry that only cost me $20. I went back on the last day and got half a grocery bag full of great stuff (including oddities like a Buzzcocks bio and a Public Enemy lyric book) for just $2. I could have filled that thing up all the way but my room is already overrun with books I haven't read.

Ryan--At one of those F'burg sales I found an original London cast recording of the Rocky Horror Show. That has to be worth something, but I don't dare part with it.

On a similar note, who else (besides Matt) LOVES used book stores? They're like the more organized and more expensive version of the book sale. Two in the NoVA area also carry CD's, often at ridiculously low prices.


FROM: liz
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 1:28:56PM
they had a library sale at the pop culture library at Bowling Green State University. i would have given my eyeteeth to go.


FROM: Ben Grimm
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 3:18:34PM
I don't have eyeteeth, but I do have eyeballs.


FROM: Rob
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 4:16:12PM
Yeah, my girlfriend and I go to McKay's in Centreville and Manassas all the time. We used to go a bit more often but we started running out of room. Ah well. Nice used bookstore and we've found some great CDs cheap there...


FROM: Robert
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 4:17:54PM
Rob--Yeah, that's my poison.


FROM: brant
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 5:05:16PM
and who told you mr sobecke about mckay... wasnt it one of us. i cant remember


FROM: Matt
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 6:02:25PM
I first started going to McCays when I was 11. I'm now 22. I used to go to get some rare comic books for really cheap. Now I go to get autobiographys on Bo Jackson.


FROM: Robert
DATE: Thursday February 1, 2001 -- 6:11:16PM
Loring--It was Matt.


FROM: Scott
DATE: Friday February 2, 2001 -- 12:31:02AM
I like books. I worked with books. Books didn't like me.


But in all seriousness, McKay's had so many books it scared me. There was so much stuff I wanted to get, so much so that I didn't get any of 'em. Go figure? ;) Rob, isn't that also the place where you were able to start your Lone Wolf addiction?



FROM: Robert
DATE: Friday February 2, 2001 -- 8:56:30AM
Scott--That actually started when I was in middle school at the Kings Park Library.
In celebration of all this book talk, I went to McKay's yesterday. Bless me. I was disappointed to see the Lone Wolf and other gaming books had been moved from the game section to Fantasy and their prices were raised. That's the only bad move McKay's has ever made.


FROM:
DATE: Saturday January 1, 2005 -- 3:07:44 pm


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