*THE* Book Sale of the Year

What book sale am I speaking of?
The 47th Annual AAUW Book Sale on Penn State campus. They say it’s one of biggest sales on the East Coast. And oh, it is AWESOME!

It is awesome because the books are CHEAP, they are MANY (250,000+) and they’re sorted into categories. Otherwise, it’d be overwhelming. As it is, the volume staggers me.

I’m a book collector, a book lover, a book reader, maybe a bookworm. But I’m turning into a very selective book buyer. A book “snob” just sounds so harsh. I buy books to read them and study them and reference them and decorate with them.

There’s a method to my (book) madness. The important three categories are Collectors, Children and Religion. I go in that order, because the best books are the old ones. Children’s books are way popular, so I go to that category next. I go to Religion last, because I work under the assumption that truth is unpopular in our secular culture, so few people know and/or want the incredible Christian writers of old. Usually, I find the best Christian books in the Collectors section anyway. Strange, I know.

I love good books. I like older books because they’re generally more likely to be “good” books. I read few books of modern fiction (written within last 50-60 years). And I hate, hate, HATE those horrible Harlequin romance novels. Even the sight of them makes me nauseous. There was someone buying a whole stack of those in front of me in line, and I had to look at the ceiling to avoid being sick… Speaking of hating books, as I was glancing through titles in the Religion section, I picked up a copy of the book of Mormon. As I realized what the title was, I dropped it like my hands were on fire. I do not fear heresy, but I despise it with a holy passion.

Anyway, more on the book sale to come...