Saturday, January 28, 2006
The joy of a good library sale in mid-winter
Well, the sale this morning was a success. I ended up buying seven cartons of books, a mix of hardcover and quality paperback (I don't buy mass market paperbacks), for $120. I found a few books I wanted myself, including Spalding Gray's Morning, Noon and Night, first edition, hardcover, and a good hardcover of the Diaries of Evelyn Waugh. The "finds" of the sale were a nice first edition in jacket of Tony Hillerman's The Great Taos Bank Robbery, 1973 (my husband picked that up), a signed Jimmy Carter book, and a signed hardcover James Lee Burke book. Also, a first edition of Virginia Woolf's Flush, and a stack of Nancy Drew books. The prices ranged from twenty-five cents up to a dollar per book. I've been happily cleaning, pricing, and shelving books for the past few hours.
Do most people think that the books being sold at library sales are only cast-offs from the library? Not so! Most are donations collected by the friends-of-the-library-group. So, anything can turn up. This sale had a lot of good science and nature books, for some reason - Richard Feynman and James Gleick, John Muir and John McPhee. I love buying good books for myself, but I really love buying good books for the shop.
Do most people think that the books being sold at library sales are only cast-offs from the library? Not so! Most are donations collected by the friends-of-the-library-group. So, anything can turn up. This sale had a lot of good science and nature books, for some reason - Richard Feynman and James Gleick, John Muir and John McPhee. I love buying good books for myself, but I really love buying good books for the shop.
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Do you have a strategy towards these sales? I arrived half an hour after my local library's most recent Friends' sale and found at least three booksellers already there who had run through the aisles, selected a stack of books, and were hoarding them in the corner. One group was scanning ISBNs and sending them to a person offsite to scan to see if the book held any value. I understand their impetus and strategy, but I will say it was very irksome, as an individual coming in to look at a leisurely pace. I thought that if I ever owned a used bookstore, that would be one of the less enviable ventures.
Still, in their peremptory and hurried searches, they missed some good copies. A nice BCE of Catcher in the Rye from 1951, a hardcover A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from 1943, and decent hardcovers of Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil and a Modern Library copy of Light in August. None are particularly valuable, but the Salinger, at least, is worthy of a Brodart.
Still, in their peremptory and hurried searches, they missed some good copies. A nice BCE of Catcher in the Rye from 1951, a hardcover A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from 1943, and decent hardcovers of Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil and a Modern Library copy of Light in August. None are particularly valuable, but the Salinger, at least, is worthy of a Brodart.
Good book selection - I would have picked up the first two myself, and perhaps the Faulkner, although I think I have a copy on the shelf right now, so perhaps not. See my post today for the answer to your strategy question, and thanks for commenting.
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