A reader's gold mine

I'm coming off one of my favorite occasional indulgences.
At this point, if you know me, you're probably wondering where the "food porn" is. ... Yes, I do love a good meal, and frequently tweet or FB photos of my gustatorial conquests. I am not yet as over the top about it as one of our beloved Geek princes, Neil Patrick Harris, who has created a whole separate Twitter feed for his food ravings, but I do tend to crow about really fab eats.
Just not today.
Today is for books. (Well, in reality, Monday and Tuesday of this week were for books ... I simply haven't had a chance to write about it until now.)
Our local Lancaster Public Library system has just concluded its yearly gargantuan used book sale, and I -- and Supportive Partner Man (hefter of filled book bags!), and The Lovely Cousin Jody, for that matter -- am replete with new-to-me tomes.
We came, we saw, we shopped. And did the Granny Alesi Bargain Dance in celebration.
So, how big is this sale? Well, for three days each May, it takes over the Franklin & Marshall Alumni Center gym, which is not tiny. The morning of Day One, SPM and I went over after a doctor's appointment and were turned away from the overflowing parking lot. We ran a few other errands, then  went back and won the parking lottery. Once inside, it was like Woodstock for book fiends, wall-to-wall people jostling for position to pick through long tables jammed full of books, records (remember those?) or videos. The checkout line ran the width of the gym floor, took a left and ran about a third of the length. There were people buying four or five books, and many others loaded down with handtrucks or pushcarts.

And this is only part of the field of battle.

 As I was hovering over a sci-fi table, I texted Jody a photo of the mayhem. The next thing I knew, my cell was ringing, and she was giving me a list of five Patricia Cornwell books to look for in hardcover. We found four of them in the space of about 10 minutes, then realized we should brave the checkout line if we wanted to make it to our respective jobs on time.
I would have much rather stayed at the sale, but practicality won the day ... and I knew I was coming back the next morning.
Day Two was a lot more relaxed. The huge crowds were gone, and there weren't as many handtrucks. Joined by Jody and her husband John, SPM and I settled in for a more considered look at the tables, not to mention the patrons.
People go about their browsing in different ways that I find highly entertaining. I myself have a certain pattern. As with reading a book, I find I can only peruse the tables from left to right. If I go in the opposite direction, I actually get dizzy. I also like to touch the books as I wander -- usually I skim lightly over the spines with two or three fingertips. The books talk to me better that way, I think.

Careful which way you're perusing.

Some drag the whole hand, and one older gentleman thumped the books with his palm every other step.
Some pull out a book and skim the back cover before deciding to take a chance on it, others hunker down and read for several minutes before choosing.
As all this is going on, volunteers are milling about, straightening piles and digging new books out of the reserve boxes under the tables to refresh the inventory. You never know what title will emerge next.
All told, the second day of the sale, SPM and I departed with two giant bags of books, and parted with $35 to do so. To put that in perspective, we found two very nice oversized Disney art books in the piles, and left with both. One of them bore a retail price of $35.
I'd say we got our money's worth.
The next challenge is on the home front. I need to cull the herd, and weed out the books I'm through with. Those likely will be donated back to the library, so the cycle can start all over again.
And as an extra added bonus this summer, I'm planning on visiting, for the first time in many years, the book event that started it all for me. I've not been to the Berks County library system's "Book Bonanza" in many years, primarily because I really did not care for the site it had been held at. When I was a kid, it used to be held in the Berkshire Mall, but after it moved to the Leesport Farmers' Market, the lack of air conditioning in July became an issue for me. This year, it's going to be held at Wyomissing's Vanity Fair outlet store on July 13-15, and I'm all for giving it another whirl.
I think between now and then I have enough time to pull together a comprehensive list of my own...

A well-worn mystery from the late 1940s
 that looks like it belongs on my
buddy Chris Otto's "Papergreat" blog. 

A bit of Disney goodness from 1975.