Monday, May 15, 2006
Another good library booksale comes and goes
The annual Bangor Public Library sale is a peculiar exercise in restraint for this particular booklover. The Friends of the Library have their opening preview on Friday evening, before the main Saturday sale, and if you pay your five dollars to join the Friends, as I do, you can go to the preview and purchase ten books. Ten. Books. This year, the public donated double the amount of books to the Friends, so the sale was quite large, and the Friends upped the number of books per person to fifteen. It felt like Christmas morning. Ryan made it to the sale after a long work day, so that means we could buy thirty books total. In the past, for this sale, I've actually paid friends to come and purchase books for me (I of course pay their Friends dues too), but this year I couldn't get it together to call people, and frankly I wasn't sure I was even going to go up until the penultimate hour, due to the sorry state of my checkbook. But, the thought of all those unknown books so nearby, only two blocks away... the night before I woke up sometime after midnight and thought What if I found ten Oxford Companions? Or ten leatherbound beauties? I should go, I should go... then I fell back asleep. The siren song of the booksale. So I went, and bought our thirty books. No leatherbounds, no Oxford Companions, but a few fine poetry and literature first editions, and a few books I love to sell and sell again, if I'm lucky enough to find them. And then, succumbing to my usual and natural state of literary gluttony, I went back to the sale on Saturday morning and bought another two hundred and twenty-five books for general shop stock. If the bookshop was a bar, I'd be under it. I've never really liked the term bookaholic; it's a little too close to the bone, isn't it.
I spent much of the weekend dealing with the new raft of books, but managed to spend a good chunk of time basking in the spring sun. Ryan and I took a picnic and our Scrabble board outside yesterday afternoon (after calling our mothers, of course). I bingoed with oration and Ry bingoed with loiterer. Good game, and a much-needed afternoon doing nothing. Today, back to the stacks!
I spent much of the weekend dealing with the new raft of books, but managed to spend a good chunk of time basking in the spring sun. Ryan and I took a picnic and our Scrabble board outside yesterday afternoon (after calling our mothers, of course). I bingoed with oration and Ry bingoed with loiterer. Good game, and a much-needed afternoon doing nothing. Today, back to the stacks!
