Sunday, June 08, 2008

Annual Used Book Sale

Yesterday Mike and I went to the annual used book sale in the parking lot of Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie, Illinois. This is the 13th annual time for us. The first year we went when we were dating.....1996. The next year we were married. It is as much fun as Christmas morning to me.
There are a ton of books and they are very inexpensive! In our first years I would buy tons of books. I still have some from the first years that I have not even read yet. This year I tried to be sensible. We have so many books in our home and we are running out of space for them. So, I was pretty selective this year. The highlights of my book buying yesterday were Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner and Love Walked In by Marissa de los Santos. Also, I found some really inexpensive children's books to use in art projects.
In the fiction section I met a lady, a retiree who lives in Arizona part of the year. She held up The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and asked me if I had read it. I didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm by saying that I am one of the few people who did not care for it. So I said, "So many people love that book!" Well, we got to talking. She told me she is in a book club in Arizona and went on to show me some of the books they read and loved. In turn, I was able to foist some of my favorite reads on her. She was very receptive and bought all the ones I recommended such as Plainsong, Tender at the Bone, and Motherland. It was lots of fun.
There were so many good books there that I have already read. If I had a lot of money I would have bought them and sent them out to people I know would like them. With finances the way they are, I took pictures of them and hope that some of you find a new great book you have not read!



If you are in the Chicago area, the book sale lasts all week! They had tons of boxes of books they had not even unloaded yet because the tables were full. I would have liked to go through all of those boxes! Treasure hunt!

5 comments:

Relyn Lawson said...

Ooh! Fun, fun, fun! I wish I could have gone pawing around with you. You know, I didn't like The Red Tent either. In fact, it is one of the few books I never finished.

I think you are going to really enjoy Love Walked In. I also loved Plainsong & Tender at the Bone. I've read all of Ruth Reichel's books. I'll have to check out Motherland. I've never raed that one either.

Gotta run. Time to log onto our library's website and request some of your recommendations. Happy reading to us both.

Trixie said...

A good book, a good friend by your side..you and Mike were having a little bit of historical heaven!

beth said...

oh geez I wish we had something like that around here !!!

I go to the used book sales at the library, but this one looked huge and wonderful !!!

thanks for taking us with you !!

Jeanie said...

Oh, my gosh -- I'd go insane. You had fabulous finds. Can't wait to see what you do with the kids' books!

Unknown said...

Dare I tell you that I look at used book sales as a place to buy canvases for altering?