Church sale

I've been pretty good lately about buying books. I went on vacation and even went to a thrift store and several local indie booksellers and still...nothing.

But yesterday I hit a church sale. I got the following for 50 cents each:

- The Great American Bathroom Book Volume 1 (I have 2 and 3 - they're basically giant Cliffs Notes about great works of literature)
- Clark's Big Book of Bargains (Clark Howard's book)
- American Harvest by Nava Atlas (one of my favorite vegetarian cookbook authors)
- The Klutz Cats Cradle book (without the elastic) (They threw this in for free.)
- A tiny book about otters called Otter On His Own. I love otters. (They threw this in for free too.)

Back to the church sale...

So I went back to the church sale - and while I was picking through the books, they announced that it was one box of books for $1. Exciting! Well, so I thought. I grabbed the rest of the Golden Book encyclopedias that I had seen yesterday - 10 volumes, all to be chopped up for crafting - and then saw The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell (missing dust jacket), a "book for boys" with lots of pictures to chop up and reuse, and then a coffee table book called 24 Hours in Dekalb County (where I live). And then - OOOOH - The Sandman: Book of Dreams. Like, I was so ridiculously excited I almost called my friend about it.

I pay, then I wander the rest of the sale, then duck back into the book section and find The American Way of Birth and a book about the ritual of sitting down to dinner (I'll fill in the title later). The kid let me take them since I'd already bought my box (really a bag) of books.

So why no pictures? I'm still pouting. I got in the car afterward and my Sandman book? Damp - which I'd suspected - and starting to grow a light green mold. If nothing else, I don't want this book infecting my other books. So, sigh sigh, I put it directly in the recycle bin. And The American Way of Birth? Has speckles of brown mold on top, but doesn't seem to be to damp, so I may put it in the sun to see what happens (or maybe - seriously - use sandpaper on it), but I've also requested a copy from the library because I really want to read it (I started skimming it in the car and it's amazing). And the Wordy Shipmates is also vaguely damp. I mean, for an average of 6.5 cents per book, the financial loss is fine, but MAN I wanted to read these!

Oh well.

It pays to wait a day to go to the church sale...

Every year a local church has a MASSIVE yard sale, with everything kind of thrown out on their huge lawn. It's chaotic, but it's also cheap. I went by not expecting to find anything, and I was rewarded with what looked like acres of books. The books were tossed haphazardly in cardboard boxes. Yesterday it rained - and it looked like they'd thrown tarps over the boxes, but the ground was wet and some of the books were wet. As a result, all books were 2/$1 - a woman told me that yesterday they were $2/hardbacks.

I managed to look through the books while wearing my daughter in a front carry in an Ergo. I'd walk by the boxes, and if something caught my eye, I'd have to carefully lower us both down so I could see. This probably meant that I bought fewer books than I really could have - and since I walked to the sale and had to carry everything, I also had to deal with the weight of the books. And they were HEAVY.

Anyway, here's round one. I think I may go back tomorrow to see about round two...



Books for my daughter (and me). You may recall that I got her Brown Bear, Brown Bear at a recent yard sale. Yeah, she already has ripped a few of the pages. The board book will work much better.



I am VERY excited about the Laura Ingalls Wilder songbook. And I picked up and put down several ridiculous cookbooks but wound up only keeping the one that you see here. Gross diet food! Yes!



How Things Work is just neat. The book on the right is for chopping up for craft projects. They actually had several volumes at the sale, but this one intrigued me the most. If I go back, I may grab others.



I've been wanting to read Eat This, Not That for some time. It looks interesting. And the dog book is for a friend (who happens to be my thrifting partner in crime as well). Both are in perfect condition.



Best score of the sale. As far as I can tell this is complete - it has a book, a poster, and, well, letters (literal letters of the alphabet). The price tag on it is $20, and it's something I've wanted for a very long time. Hooray!

I also bought a shirt for a quarter, but by then my bag was too heavy to get anything else...