Library Book Sale 2011

Katie D.

April 10, 2011 - 9:57 PM

This weekend was the 33rd annual Eugene Public Library Book Sale! I have never before, in my five springs in Eugene, attended this event. Now I wonder what I've been doing with my time.

When we arrived at the Fairgrounds at 7:02 am, 131 people had been there before us, already with numbered tickets in hand to establish their place at the book tables. When we returned (after a fabulous Humble Beagle breakfast) to get back in line at 9:00 am, there were well over five hundred people there, waiting for the doors to open.

Each year, tens of thousands of books are donated to the library system, and are sold off in a crazy weekend of bargain prices. The place was amazing: tables labeled by genre, covered in carefully aligned books and monitored by an army of volunteers, who stacked new books on the tables as fast as the crowds could pick them off. Even more impressive were the crowd members: Eugene's best bookies crowded together and elbowing for a space at the table. People filled multiple boxes of books, some with the goal of augmenting their own bookshelves, and others intent on the deals to be had selling off their purchases at the various local used book stores.

I had a fabulous time. I love books to a fanatical degree, and I was in Heaven among so many. Plus everything was a fabulous deal! I spent $27.50 to benefit one of the best public libraries I have ever patronized. Here's my list for the day:

Fiction
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin
Three Junes by Julia Glass
Run by Ann Patchett
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
I Know this Much is True by Wally Lamb
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass

Poetry
Picnic, Lightning by Billy Collins
Collected Poems by Wendell Berry

Other
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
The Best American Short Stories (2001) edited by Barbara Kingsolver
The Autobiography of an Execution by David Dow

Is life good, or what?!

Even when I am far too busy for extra activities and non-essential commitments, I am still a fanatical reader. I have been all my life. And, just like when my mom would take me to the library on hot summer days to spend hours among books in the air conditioning, I am still brought alive by a room full of books. I love discovering new authors, and I love re-reading old favorites. I read multiple books at once, always. There's no time to be limited to one at a time! I'm halfway through Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim on tape (for my walks to school--I love being read to) and am reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver for a second time. Not to mention the books I read for school and the non-fiction I read depending on my current moods and interests. But everything was put on hold when I picked up The Art of Racing in the Rain. I've already read it, cover to cover. This is a completely beautiful story. If you haven't already read it, I sincerely recommend it. To anyone, everyone. The narrator is a family dog, and the author gets it just right.

Now I have the joyful task of finding shelf space for all these new finds, and the slower pleasure of reading or re-reading each and every book. I own quite a few books (well over two hundred by my rough count just now). I only purchase books I expect I will want to lend out, or re-read many times. I get a similar joy from toting home a bag of library books, to temporarily crowd my bedside table and then returning for someone else to read. But this new batch has all the excitement of old friends and new potential.

Happy reading, everyone!