River City Fiction

Money to spend and titles to buy

3 hardbacks, 2 paperbacks, 7 comics = $7.70

Saturday, Adam and I went to the Richmond Public Library fall book sale with a list of titles and $10.  Two hours later, we left with three hardbacks, two paperbacks, seven comic books, and $2.30 in change.  It was fantastic.

Highlights (in no particular order)

• Finding a book by almost every author on my list
• The young woman with an armful of books that reached from waist to chin
• People carrying grocery bags full of goodies to feed the mind, not body
• The lady behind me humming “Yankee Doodle Dandy” as she browsed
• Meeting Susan Hankins, book sale chair, and Ellen F. Brown, local author and RPL Friend, both women I’ve talked to online and admire
• Seeing the enthusiasm among volunteers and shoppers
• Finding Chaucer mixed in with the Left Behind series and Shakespeare beside John Grisham
• Finding titles that made Adam and I smile, like Your Pregnancy from Capital One and This Book Will Save Your Life, which made me want a doughnut.

“Come here with $20, and you go home with a library.” -Overheard

Hardbacks for $2

My suggestions for shopping the book sale (again, no order)

• Give yourself time to browse the boxes of paperbacks. Hardbacks are shelved by genre and author (fast and easy to search), but the paperbacks are boxed.
• Bring bags, boxes, carts, suitcases, or a friend who doesn’t mind heavy lifting. You will want to take so many books home, you’ll need a transport device.
• Bring a list of authors and titles. A list is useful if you’re as forgetful as I am.  My list also made shopping faster, because I could have spent an entire day going over the 20,000 titles.
• Bring cash or check. The book sale cannot accept credit or debit cards.
• Check a couple of sections before giving up on a title. The sale is well-organized, but volunteers handle many books, so Jeffery Deaver ended up in both the fiction and mystery sections.
• Don’t wear a coat. It felt a little warm after browsing for a while, and my hands were so full of books I couldn’t carry a coat.
• Check out the freebies. There are lots of National Geographic Magazines you can take home free of charge.  Don’t stress about cluttering your house.  If you’re a writer, they can inspire you for National Novel Writing Month.
• Don’t forget special collections. Head down the stairs, around the corner, through the special collections section, and into the stacks to find gorgeous old volumes and rare books for a fraction of what they sell for online.

The Richmond Public Library fall book sales continues until 6:00 today.  If you cannot make it this evening, visit the spring book sale for more great titles.

A sample of special collections

More photos

This slideshow requires JavaScript.