Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

What a weekend - I made a housecall to buy books on Friday night after closing up shop, then I was up early on Saturday to head to a library sale down on Mount Desert Island (this is one of my favorite local friends-of-the-library sales, because the books are consistently fine from year to year), then I went to another library sale, also on the island. The car was full by the time we headed for home, after getting the book-dust rinsed off in the ocean, and a few hours of lounging at the beach in Seal Harbor. So here I sit, surrounded by boxes. I am a bit of a neat freak, so I've got to go through them and get the books out, and the boxes broken down and have everything tidy again, but this is a little ridiculous - seventeen cartons of books, people - seventeen. My, my. I'll be busy for the next two days at least.

My usual routine for sorting books goes something like this: unpack one box at a time, clean off the books with very lightly damp rags/paper towels, remove old stickers and gunk, code the books with my secret price code, put dust jacket protectors on all the books with jackets, sort into piles - keep/read, price and put out in the shop immediately, squirrel away for a bookshow, list on Amazon, and mystery books which need some research. Price the books I can right away, and shelve them. One box at a time until I'm through. Half the fun is discovering what I forgot I bought. The only things I distinctly remember right now that I'm very excited about unearthing are an early Edward Gorey hardcover with a jacket, a signed Fitzroy MacLean hardcover in jacket (I love his travel/history books and I've never seen a signed one before), and a fine first edition in fine jacket of The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. That's just three books out of the sixteen boxes, though- there's lots more to report on later.