Library sale this morning- roused Meggsie from her ancient slumber to wrangle the Fuss while we sifted books under the hot sun. 85 degrees at 9am in Los Osos is ridiculous. Roughly half the usual number of vultures were circling the carcass when we arrived- the weather must have suppressed turnout. They built a corral around the site with naval orange plastic webbing, which was new. A gal said they had problems last sale with people walking off without paying.
How much bad karma does that generate, stealing cheap-ass books from a library sale? I filled up six boxes and 4 grocery bags for under a hundred bucks (and that included a small stack from the 'collectibles' table)- we barely got them all in the car.
We scored lots of good stuff, which was more a reflection of the relative paucity of buyers than the quality of the sale. The small-ish turnout harbored a lesser number of dealers than usual, and dealers are each others only real competition. As jaundiced an eye as Joe & Jane Public cast my way as I sweep across tables gathering my armloads, they probably wouldn't want the stuff I pick up on my first couple of passes through a sale. Good internet books are mostly the sort of specific, obscure, oddball things that your average consumer wouldn't want in the first place, even for a quarter or a buck.
This sales favorite purchase was a box full of weird homebrewing books I found mis-filed in gardening. Volunteers make mistakes- neophyte scroungers are advised to scour every section, however unlikely they seem. I found a nice cache of Jungian stuff in literature, confounding Danielle Steel & Dan Brown. Alas there was no reprise of last sale, where I scored a nice 1st edition of New Moon (which must be nearly ripe, considering the density of the hype blanket it has thrown over the mediaverse).
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