Books, Books, Books!

Yesterday my Mother and I "stopped by" the public library's annual book sale before we began a round of more necessary errands. In the facility's largest assembly room, books were arranged by category on row after row of tables and shelves. Several hundred thousand pieces of reading material were for sale. We each picked up an empty box and began shopping.

First I visited the Classics section, which included at least 700-800 choices on three tall book cases. I selected only a couple of classics (Wuthering Heights and Spoon River Anthology.) Then I sauntered past 10 long tables filled with books labeled simply Fiction. A relatively small bookshelf filled with Family books sat beside a slightly larger bookcase with Foreign Language books. I gave that one a cursory going-over to see whether there was anything in Spanish. Most were in Asian languages, but I did find a small Spanish crossword puzzle book for $.10, so I added that to my box. I hurriedly glanced through Georgia Authors, Southern Lit, Gardening, Crafts, Cookbooks, and Biographies, each on a long table of its own. I selected two books of humor that I am looking forward to reading - Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and David Letterman's Book of Top Ten Lists. I won't name all the other sections, but I added to my box from the Philosophy shelves, the Mystery section (8 or more tall shelves full), the Religion tables (6 long tables full), the Travel section, and the Children's tables.

I forced myself not to look at 4 tables full of simply Paperbacks, still hoping that we would have time to run the other errands on our agenda. I confess I am considering going back today to look over those paperbacks. I finished up and topped off my box with several selections from Magazines.

I emptied my box on the check-out table to tally up the damage. I was buying 18 magazines, 4 hardback books, and 12 paperback books and spending a grand total of $7.25! (Mother's total expenditure was about the same as mine.) We struggled out the door, down the hill, and out to the truck in the parking lot, each lugging our box of treasures. We had spent a very pleasurable hour or two together browsing and selecting; and we'll spend many more hours enjoying our purchases. (BTW, We will run the other errands another day!)

Only $7 for dozens of hours of great entertainment. What a bargain!