A Bookish Weekend!

The Moorhead Public Library had a used booksale this weekend. On Saturday morning it started at 10 AM and I arrived at 9:45 to find a long line already formed. While I stood in line with my mom, we heard my dad downstairs laughing and joking around with another person standing in line. He took the elevator and made it to the bottom of the stairs, while we were half-way to the basement of the library. He was in his element! He loves booksales and auctions and doesn't mind if people are pushy and rude, like they can be at sales like this.

With that many people in line, when the doors were opened it was a mad rush into the large room with the books. There were two ways to get into the book room and I quickly took the longer and less traveled route and found myself inside quickly. The sight was overwhelming! Rows of tables were bursting of books and there were many boxes overflowing under the tables. With so many people flooding in, I quickly decided that it would be dangerous to dig under the tables and tried to make my way around the tables, and that was no easy task. Mind you, I don't like huge crowds and obnoxious people. And let's face it - you have to act a bit obnoxious to stand in line at a booksale and push your way around.

As I fought the crowds I was amazed at how pushy people were and how mad they seemed as they dug through the rows of books and picked and grabbed at things they thought they wanted. I was squished on both sides and even had to turn sideways. At one point I had one older man to the left of me and one older man to the right of me, and they were both rudely trying to burrow their way to the table so they could dig at the books. And although I debated on walking away from them in disgust, I managed to laugh it off and ignore them.

After it seemed to calm down a bit, I took out my cellphone to take a couple pictures of the masses searching for treasured books. The quality of the pictures aren't the best but it will give you an idea of how squished it was at the tables. Even more amazing, people brought little kids! Not just 5 or 6 year-olds, but babies and toddlers. A couple ladies even tried wheeling strollers around, which wasn't an easy task.

The tables in the middle were full of childrens' books galore! There were loads of larger books with pictures and even young adult novels. I did quite a bit of searching for books I remembered borrowing from the library or had as a kid because I always have a couple of titles that I'm in constant search of, but no luck for me.




However, I did find a good reading copy of a Young Adult novel that I recently borrowed from the library but didn't get a chance to read - Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix - so that was one of the great treasures I walked away with!

Here is a picture of my book booty! Over both days - I went on Saturday and again on Sunday - I came away with two large paper bags of books for less than $10! I went into the sale looking for a few good Young Adult Novels, regular novels, and anything else that captured my attention.
I came away with a few childrens' books with illustrations I loved, like The Inside-Outside Book of Paris and the Girls Think of Everything book that shows great inventions created by women. I bought a few illustrated childrens books for sketching ideas. I also found a super cool book titled Costume 1066-1966 showing costume designs and history. It will be fun to try and sketch some of the drawings inside!

Two other great finds were the two volume set of Burke's Royal families of the World. Volume I is of Europe and Latin America and Volume II is Africa and the Middle East. Royalty has always fascinated me and I'll enjoy this set.

I also found a good paperback reading copy of The Alienist by Caleb Carr, highly recommended by Tickpuppy and also a book I've wanted to read for awhile!

One last really cool find wasn't a book, but a video of an old TV show my brother and I watched way back in the day called Ghostwriter!! I was psyched when I found it! It will be fun to pop it in and watch it. It was about a friendly Ghost that was only known to exist to a special group of kids that liked to solve mysteries. The kids had special pens they wore around their necks and Ghostwriter, who looked like a ball of light, would use the kids and their magic pens to give them clues they could write down in order to help solve mysteries. It was a great show on PBS!

Overall, the booksale was quite a bit of fun and a whole lot of exhausting! It is hard work to keep it together while everyone around you seems to be on a mission. This sale was like a Black Friday Booksale at times! At one point I looked down to see a grow-up woman all the way under the table sorting through boxes of books like she was trying to dig to China. When she came up for air she told one of the workers, "That was totally worth it, even if I did bump my head a few times." Oh well - whatever floats your boat, right? Out of all of the madness, it good to see people so excited about reading and excited about books!