Volunteering at the Friends of the Decatur Library Book Sale earlier this month provided me the rare opportunity to wear my vintage 2008 Decatur Book Festival shirt. I also did some book browsing while tasked of keeping the tables of books in order (e.g., moving Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from the toxic masculinity section back to Classics).
Amongst the book tables—bibliophiles scouted for that rare find, voracious readers interested in quantity as much as quality filled shopping bags, and parents stocked up for their pre-school children. I especially enjoyed seeing youngsters sprawled on the sales floor absorbed in a colorful book, oblivious to the whirlwind around them.
After the initial onslaught things slowed down and I was able to browse for myself. Even though I haven't done much large venue book shopping in a few years (I still wore my mask), I only brought a couple books home. Most notable was a 50-cent copy of Joseph Conrad’s 1902 novella Heart of Darkness, which we are reading in our book group duo. The extra copy allows me to mark passages for discussion.
The next Friends of the Decatur Library Sale will be the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, May 27th. In the meantime, you can donate your gently used books at the front desk of the Decatur Library. Take it from me, these books will get a thorough and appreciative examination and the money raised during the sale goes to support the library.
Nice to see a shout-out to the Decatur library's book sale(s). This recent one was the best of all I've gone to myself (certainly all the ones that used to happen at each Decatur Book Festival, and many before those). I spent a happy hour or so and bought so many more books than usual because of the better-than-usual pricing! I brought home more than 40 books this time! Of course, I've no idea where I'll store the dang things, but that's a better problem to have than not buying something because it cost more than a dollar or two! So, yay: a fun morning for sure.
Posted by: Cal Gough | February 18, 2023 at 11:05 AM