Similar sightings at the library book sale

[ralerin]

Mmm, books. Please stop making me drool. Best Friend is more of a book person than me, but going to the bookstore and to the library still satisfies our cravings.

I haven't actually visited my library's book sales in a year, I think I might have to. There's one book that I'm actually waiting for to go into the sale, it's an 1887 music book in the original binding (still crackles when you open it ), hasn't been borrowed since I borrowed it a couple years ago (last time before then was the mid 60's), so it's due. And it will be MINE.

[Dreamstalker]

Both her parents worked for the school system. She herself graduated salutatorian. And she was right, there WEREN'T any books in her house.

The Twit seemed shocked when she saw that half the shelf space (and a good portion of the floor as I didn't want to drop more money on another small bookcase) in my dorm room was taken up by non-textbook books (the latter fit on my desk). I was equally if not more shocked when she told me she does not read beyond what's necessary for coursework. At all.

I also have books stored at my dad's house, about twenty linear feet worth.

The other day I had to do some belongings-shuffling as I'm moving back in with my mom and "my" small bookshelf behind the door needed to be moved to get the bed in.

I managed to get the symmetrical book-stacking up to about five feet before balance became an issue. No photo sadly, so I may have to do it again

[Mark Healey]

We have a nice one here once a year. I did actually look inside to see what books they have and there were lots of nice ones (I was working around the building hosting it and I had keys to the building). However, I don't bother going because there's too many people in the two days the sale is hosted and the first night all the book sellers show up and buy up everything decent. The people who run the sale don't particularly like the book sellers either though.

I'm a bookseller, and I hate to tell you this but at any good sale anything decent is bought up in the fist 10 minutes. But I understand the bad rep we have. Bookselling used to be a gentlemans business. Then the internet came along. Now the sales have these people with barcode scanners hooked up to their PDAs who don't even read selling on-line. The software on these PDAs makes a happy noise or a sad noise whenever a book is scanned (I don't know what the specific noises are.). To make it in this business you used to need education and taste. Now you don't even need to know English.

These scanner zombies don't even look at the titles. All they do is look for a barcode to scan. Since most of them are from third world countries where everyone is out to screw over everyone else they are the most pushy obnoxious people there.

[protege]

The Twit seemed shocked when she saw that half the shelf space (and a good portion of the floor as I didn't want to drop more money on another small bookcase) in my dorm room was taken up by non-textbook books (the latter fit on my desk). I was equally if not more shocked when she told me she does not read beyond what's necessary for coursework. At all.

Quite a few people get shocked...when they walk into my home office, and see that one entire *wall* is lined with bookshelves, and nearly all of them are filled. As if that wasn't enough, there's reading material piled on the end tables in the living, next to the closet door in the office, and hidden in several other places. Upon seeing that, most people claim that I "have too much stuff."

Nope, it's that I'm a model-builder, who likes to read, but doesn't have the time. That's why there are several years worth of sports car and train magazines all over the place.

And no, I don't throw them out. I get my money's worth out of them. They're a great reference--want to know the firing order for 1969 MGB GT, or why the Mustang has those fake 'ducts' ahead of the rear wheels? For the record, it's 1-3-4-2 for the MG, and those Mustang ducts...were left over from prototype's mid-engine (that is, the engine was behind the front seats) origins.

With that said, I'm constantly going through those items, either to help people out on message boards or for my own projects.