SIXTEEN DOLLARS

Every year, our local library has a used book sale. Some of the books are discards from the library, but most are donated to the sale by people who think they have no use for their books any longer. I admit to lacking an understanding of the latter source of books. I mean, come on, unless one went blind and had no heirs, how could a book possibly be of no use to its original owner? Yet, year after year, the Friends of Curtis Memorial Library set out dozens of tables and place thereon tons of books. This year, roughly 50,000 books were on offer.
Now some people, not to mention any names, like the name of a wife with red hair and four sons, think that it’s possible to have too many books, that more books than a certain number of books are superfluous and that there is not enough time to read them and no place to put them. Such people, when encountered, are best either ignored, or, if it is necessary to draw near, it is wise to approach with caution. Theirs is a madness which is highly unpredictable in nature.
However, in what I like to call middle middle age (the 50's: a great era for pop music, and, insofar as I have been able to ascertain, people as well) I have modified my approach to the library sale. In the past, I would hit the sale first thing Friday, standing in line perhaps and hour and a half before the doors were opened, and then go to those sections where I thought I might mine the most literary gold– at $2 a book. This usually cost a fair bit, but I deemed it worthwhile.
Saturday, when the books were half price (you can do the math, right, I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?) I would head back to the same areas covered on Friday and gather those books I wanted from, say, the humor section, and then relocate them to the area reserved for books in Greek and Latin. Books from the general fiction and mystery sections would be relocated to the section with the engineering and math books. Then, on Sunday, I would stand in line again for more than an hour, rush in when the doors were flung open, and with the aid of my sons (there purely as sherpas) I would dash from one section to the other (usually with no one else in my way) and hand them piles of books that I had carefully secreted the day before. Then they put them in large boxes and stuck index cards labeled SAVED on top and then shove the boxes under the table. This process would take around ten minutes, and once the books were boxed, the children would be free to roam the sale, and gather such books as they wanted. Meanwhile, I would take the books from the boxes, carefully repack them in grocery bags, and place the bags on a sort of wheeled trolley. The boys would drift by and hand me such books as had stuck their fancies, and I would bag those as well. By the time I had all the books bagged, I would have pretty much filled the trolley, and we would head to the check out, where the dunnage was $2 a bag. One haul that I remember in particular netted a bit over 450 books at an average cost of seven cents per. Not too bad.
But now, in slothful middle middle age, I have, as I said, modified my approach. I manfully resist the siren song of the Friday sale, and I turn down the half price opportunities of Saturday and the chance for prerelocation. No, I merely get up in time to get to the Sunday sale about an hour before the starting gun, stand in line chatting with friends and booknuts, some I have known for thirty years, and then, when the doors are flung wide I simply race in, scour the appropriate tables at warp speed, and put the books I want in piles under the tables, still with the index cards that indicate they are taken. The scouring takes only an hour or an hour and a half at most– by that time, there is not much left, and then I clear a big space on the table, pack the books carefully into paper bags, and then when all is packed up, go hunt down a trolley and drag my haul to the check out.
This year, the take was a mere eight bags of books, a total cost of $16– less than the cost of a single new book at any of the finer book emporia that now dot this great land of ours.
Is it worth it? Well, let’s see. For the first time, and I dare say last time as well, I shall identify the books captured in the fray. Thank goodness this was not one of the larger hauls....
Feel free to skim, or skip to the end, where I expect to have a few more remarks.....
A few notes before we start. 1st means “first edition”; nbc means “not book club”; pb means “paperback”; hb means “hardcover”; mint means “in like new condition” and vg means roughly the same thing, though the price might have been clipped or there might be an inscription but that the book itself is in great shape. In addition exl does not mean “excellent”– it means “ex-library” in other words, a well used book discarded from the stacks of the library. I think that about covers it. So, here we go:

Side Effects, by Woody Allen, hb, vg. 1st?
Side Effects, by Woody Allen, hb, good. 1st
The Quintessential Cat, Robert Altman, pb, uncorrected proof, mint
Walter The Improbable Hound, Fred Ayer Jr., hb, mint save for inscription, 1st
The Lord Mayor of Death, Marian Babson, hb, exl, good
Dave Barry Is From Mars And Venus, pb, 1st pb, vg
Dave Barry Turns 40, 1st hb, vg
Dave Barry Slept Here, 1st, hb, mint
Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits, pb, 1st, mint
The Shepherd, The Angel, And Walter the Christmas Dog, Dave Barry, pb, good
Revenge of the Kali-Ra, K K Beck, hb, exl, vg, 1st
The World of Bemelmans, Ludwig Bemelmans, hb, 1st?, good
The Biltmore Estate, oversized pg, mint
The Burglar In The Closet, Lawrence Block, hb, book club, vg
Bangkok, John Blofeld, hb, oversized, vg, 1st
Forever, Erma, Erma Bombeck, hb, 1st, vg
Monsieur Pamplemousse Aloft, Michael Bond, pb, exl, good, 1st pb
The Garden Plot, J S Bothwick, hb, 1st, mint
The Cat Who Blew The Whistle, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, exl, 1st
The Cat Who Brought Down The House, Lilian Jackson Braun, pb, gd
The Cat Who Brought Down The House, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, 1st, exl, vg
The Cat Who Came To Breakfast, Lilian Jackson Braun, pb, exl, good
The Cat Who Came To Breakfast, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, 1st , mint
The Cat Who Dropped A Bombshell, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, large print, vg
The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare, Lilian Jackson Braun, pb, 1st pb, vg
The Cat Who Saw Stars, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, exl, 1st, vg
The Cat Who Smelled A Rat, Lilian Jackson Braun, hb, exl, good, 1st ?
Tales Too Ticklish To Tell, Berke Breathed, pb, 1st, good
Four Complete Mysteries, Simon Brett, hb, exl, good
The 2000 Year Old Man In The Year 2000, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, pb, 1st, vg
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, hb, mint, 1st?
The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, hb, mint, 1st? (2nd copy)
Ultra Violet, Nancy Bush, hb, exl 1st, vg
Napalm & Silly Putty, George Carlin, hb, 1st, mint
Cassell’s French English Dictionary, 1st pb, good
The Life of the Party, Bennet Cerf, hb, vg, 1st
Paris, Rudolph Chelminski, hb, oversized, mint, 1st
Craig Claiborne’s Gourmet Diet, hb, 6th printing, vg
Prizzi’s Family, Richard Condon, hb, vg, 1st?
Prizzi’s Glory, Richard Condon, hb, 1st US, mint
Childhood, Bill Cosby, hb, exl, 1st? vg
Childhood, Bill Cosby, hb, vg, 1st
A Six For The Toff, John Creasey, pb, vg, 2nd impression
Double For The Toff, John Creasey, pb, good
Feathers For The Toff, John Creasey, pb, second impression
Gideon’s Law, John Creasey, pb, vg
Gideon’s Raid, John Creasey, pb, good
Gideon’s Wrath, by John Creasey, pb, good,
Here Comes The Toff, John Creasey, pb, vg
Model For The Toff, John Creasey, pb, vg, 1st US pb
Salute the Toff, John Creasey, pb, good, 1st US
The Toff and the Golden Boy, John Creasey, pb, vg
The Toff and the Great Illusion, John Creasey, pb, exl, 1st pb? good
The Toff and the Kidnapped Child, John Creasy, pb, exl, ?
The Toff and the Runaway Bride, John Creasy, pb, exl?
The Toff and the Stolen Tresses, John Creasey, pb, vg
The Toff and the Toughs, John Creasey, pb, vg
The Toff In Town, John Creasey, pb, vg, exl, 1st UK(pb)
The Toff Goes To Market, John Creasey, pb, good
The Toff On Fire, John Creasey, pb, good
Next, by Michael Crichton, hb, 1st, exl
Cheap Shot, Jay Cronley, hb, exl, 1st, good
The Puzzled Heart, Amanda Cross, hb, book club ed, vg
The Divine Comedy Part One, Dante, pb, good
Paradise, by Patrick Dennis, hb, 1st, good
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, pb, mint
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle, pb, mint
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, pb, mint
Mr Dooley on Ivrything and Ivrybody, Finley Peter Dunne, pb, good
The Word Book II, Kaethe Ellis, hb, vg
Big City Eyes, Delia Ephron, hb, mint, 1st
A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears, by Jules Feiffer, mint, hb, 1st
Southeast Asia, Fodor, pb, exl, (1999) good
Come To Grief, Dick Francis, pb, vg
Driving Force, Dick Francis, hb, mint, 1st
Straight, Dick Francis, hb, vg, 1st
Oh, The Things I Know, Al Franken, pb, 1st pb, vg
Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, by Al Franken, hb, mint, 1st
The Truth, Al Franken, hb, 1st, mint
Robert Frost’s Poems, pb, good
All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. Robert Fulghum, hb, vg
The Case of the Blonde Bonanza, Erle Stanley Gardner, hb, good
Role of Honor, John Gardner, vg, 1st?
Cat and Mouse, William Campbell Gault, hb, exl, vg, 1st
Cheaper By the Dozen, by Gilbreth etc, large print, hb, 1st? exl
Snooze, Alfred Gingold and John Buskin, pb, 1st , vg
Snooze, Alfred Gingold and John Buskin, pb, 1st, vg (2nd copy)
A Death For A Dilettante, E X Giroux, hb, exl, 1st, vg
The Boston Basin Bicycle Book, Goldfrank and Humez, pb, 1st, good
C is for Corpse, Sue Grafton, pb, vg
F is for Fugitive, by Sue Grafton, pb, vg
H is for Homicide, Sue Grafton, hb, large print, vg
J is for Judgment, Sue Grafton, exl, hb, vg, 1st
M is for Malice, Sue Grafton, pb, vg,
O is for Outlaw, Sue Grafton, hb, 1st, mint
P is for Peril, Sue Grafton, hb, 1st, mint
Rotten Apples, Edith Pinero Green, hb, 1st, exl
Perfect Fools, Edith Pinero Green, hb, exl, 1st, good
Sneaks, Edith Pinero Green, 1st, exl, good
How To Live With A Calculating Cat, Eric Gurney, pb, 1st pb?
Enigma,by Robert Harris, hb, 1st, mint
A Treasury of Great Mysteries, Howard Haycraft and John Beecroft, hb good
Blue Highways, William Least Heat Moon, pb, vg
Pel and the Headless Corpse, Mark Hebden, hb, exl, 1st US, vg
Grooks, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Grooks 3, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Grooks 3, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Grooks 4, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Grooks 5, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Grooks 5, Piet Hein, pb, vg
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A Heinlein. Pb, vg/g
The Enthusiast, Peter Hill, hb, exl, good, 1st US
The Fanatics, Peter Hill, hb, exl, good, 1st US
The Wood Beyond, Reginald Hill, hb, vg, 1st?
Blandings’ Way, Eric Hodgins, hb, book club, mint
The Illiad, Homer, pb, vg
The Odyssey, Homer, pb, good
John Keats 1795-1995, Houghton Library, pb vg, 1st
Barcelona, Robert Hughs, hb, 1st, mint
Exotic Aquarium Fishes, William Innes, hb, vg
Any Place I Hang My Hat, Susan Isaacs, hb, exl, 1st
The Black Tower, P D James, pb, exl, 1st pb, vg
Le Marriage by Diane Johnson, hb, 2st, mint
C B Greenfield: The Piano Bird, Lucille Kallen, hb, book club, exl, vg
The Devil Met A Lady, Stuart Kaminsky, hb, 1st, exl, vg
Hard Currency, Stuart Kaminsky, pb, 1st mass pb, vg
Lake Woebegone Days, Garrison Keillor, hb, mint, book club
Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor, pb, vg
Pontoon, Garrison Keillor, hb, 1st, mint
We Are Still Married, Garrison Keillor, hb, book club, vg
Monday The Rabbi Took Off, Harry Kemelman, hb, exl, vg, 1st ?
One Fine Day The Rabbi Bought A Cross. Harry Kemelman, pb, 1st pb, vg
One Fine Day The Rabbi Bought A Cross, Harry Kemmelman, hb, 1st, exl, good
Wednesday The Rabbi Got Wet, Harry Kemelman, hb, vg, 1st ?
One Fell Sloop, Susan Kenney, exl 1st, good
Iowa, Deborah Kent, hb, vg, 3rd printing
Please Don’t Eat The Daises, by Jean Kerr, vg, hb, 1st
Please Don’t Eat The Daises, by Jean Kerr, vg, hb, book club
Please Don’t Eat The Daisies, by Jean Kerr, exl, rebound, good
The Best Nature Writing of Joseph Wood Krutch, hb, good
On The Road With Charles Kuralt, Charles Kuralt, hb, 1st ?, vg
The Face On The Wall, Jane Langton, hb, book club? vg
Larousse’s Eng-French/French-Eng Dictionary, 56th printing, pb, good
Larousses’ Eng-French/French-Eng Dictionary, 83rd printing. pb, good
Right On The Money, Emma Lathen, hb, vg, 1st
Something In the Air, Emma Lathen, hb, vg, large print
Call For The Dead, John LeCarre, hb, vg, 1st (!)
Our Game, John LeCarre, hb, 1st trade, mint
The Road To Omaha, Robert Ludlum, pb, good
The Complete Yes, Minister, Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay, pb, 1st US, vg
One More Sunday, John D MacDonald, hb, book club, vg
The Balloon Man, Charlotte MacLeod, hb, 1st, mint
The Gladstone Bag, Charlotte MacLeod, hb, 1st, mint save for inscription
The Resurrection Man, Charlotte MacLeod, hb, 1st, near mint
Hurricane Peak, Margaret Mahy, by, exl, 1st, vg
Gideon’s Lot, J J Marric, hb, exl, 1st , good
Encore Provence, Peter Mayle, hb, 1st, mint
The Big Bad City, Ed McBain, hb, vg
Fiddlers, Ed McBain, hb, exl, 1st?
Heat, Ed McBain, hb, vg, 1st?
Heat, Ed McBain, exl, worn
Lullaby, Ed McBain, hb, exl, 1st, good
The McBain Brief, pb, exl, vg
Puss In Boots, Ed McBain, hb, 1st, mint
Rumplestiltskin, Ed McBain, hb, book club, vg
Fletch Reflected, Gregory McDonald, hb, exl, 1st?, vg
Flynn, Gregory McDonald, pb, exl, 1st, good
Coming Into The Country, John McPhee, hb, vg, 5th printing
Italian In A Nutshell, Nicholas Milella, hb, good
Paradise Lost, John Milton, pb, vg, 7th pb ed
The Student’s Milton, hb, vg
Rumpole and the Angel of Death, John Mortimer, hb, exl, 1st US, vg
Felix in the Underworld, John Mortimer, hb, vg, 1st US
The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float, Farley Mowat, pb, vg, 3rd pd ed
Peppers, Amal Naj, hb, mint, 2nd printing
Canada’s Incredible Coasts, National Geographic, hb, 1st ? , mint
The Country Garden, Josephine Nuese, hb, exl, 1st?
All The Trouble In The World, P J O’Rourke, hb, exl, vg, 1st
All The Trouble In The World, P J O’Rourke, hb. mint, 1st
Parliament of Whores, P J O’Rourke, hb, good, 8th printing
The Detective and Mr Dickens, William J Palmer, hb, vg, 1st? book club?
Dead Lock, Sara Paretsky, hb, book club? vg
Chance, Robert B Parker, by, exl, 1st, near mint
Early Autumn, Robert B Parker, pb, 3rd, good
Baby, It’s Cold Outside, S. J. Perelman, hb, vg
The Last Camel Died At Noon, Elizabeth Peters, hb, 1st, exl
Dover Goes To Pott, Joyce Porter, hb, 1st, exl, good
Roger Fishbite by Emily Prager, hb, mint, 1st
Omerta, Mario Puzzo, hb, 1st, mint
Buster’s World, Bjarne Reuter, j-hb, vg,
The Cooking School Murders, Virginia Rich, pb, good, 1st pb
Lord Peter, Dorothy Sayers, pb, 1st pg ed, good, exl
Lord Peter Views The Body, Dorothy Sayers, pb, good
Think Thinner, Snoopy, Charles Schulz, pb, good,
As You Like It, Sharkespeare, pb, vg
Hamlet, Shakespeare, pb, good
Henry IV Part One, Shakespeare, pb, vg
King Lear, Shakespeare, pb, good
King Lear, Shakespeare, pb, vg
Macbeth, Shakespeare, pb, good
Measure For Measure, Shakespeare, pb, good
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare, pb, good
Othello, Shakespeare, pb, good
The Tempest, Shakespeare, pb, good
Maigret and The Killer, by George Simenon. exl, hb, 1st US
What’s Up Doc, Carole Smith, pb, 1st pb
Life In A Putty Knife Factory, H Allen Smith, hb, vg,
Write Me A Poem, Baby, H Allen Smith, hb, 4th printing, vg
The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American, Jeff Smith, hb, vg, 1st?
Meet Andy Capp, Reginald Smythe, pb, first, good
The Dan Quayle Quiz Book, Jeremy Solomon and Ken Brady, pb, 1st, mint
Oedipus and Antigone, Sophocles, pg, vg
One Foot In Heaven, Hartzell Spence, hb, vg,
Willard Lives! By Robert L Steed, mint, hb, 1st ?
Florida, Lynn M Stone, hb, good, 6th ed
Client Privilege, William Tapply, hb, exl, 1st, good
Alarms and Diversions, James Thurber, hv, vg, 1st
Fables For Our Times, James Thurber, hb, 1st, vg
Men, Women and Dogs, James Thurber, hb, 1st, vg
My Life And Hard Times, James Thurber, pb, vg
Thurber Country, James Thurber, hb, mint
Remembering Denny, Calvin Trillin, pb, vg
Ask For May, Settle For June, G B Trudeau, pb, 1st, vg
We’re Not Out Of The Woods Yet, G B Trudeau, pb, 1st, vg
The Wreck of the Rusty Nail, G B Trudeau, 1st, pb, vg
The Passion of Artemisia, Susan Vreeland, hb, mint, 1st?
More Bushisms, Jacob Weisberg, pb, 1st, mint
The Last Italian Joke Book, by Larry Wilde, pb, vg, 3rd ed
Housewarming, Charlie Wing, pb, good, 1st
Notre-Dame De Paris, Richard and Clara Winston, hb, vg, 1st?

That’s the end of the list. Two hundred twenty nine books, and that’s not counting the two I tossed, one because it was too torn up, the other because it was too weird and not what I thought it was. So, doing the math, that comes to, wait for it... yes, you guessed it, seven cents a copy. I suppose this isn’t too much of a surprise, after all, it’s how one packs the books in bags that determines the unit cost. I suppose if I ran into that million volume set about civilization that broke so many book shelves in the 1970s and tried to pack that in, it could mess up the average. But without purposely trying to get more or fewer paperbacks or hardcovers or oversized books, it came to seven cents a copy. If you waded through the list, you will have noticed a fair number of mint first editions that are worth considerably more than the sixteen big ones I had to lay down to take these home.
But, of course, they’re not all going home. Most will live at the Summer Palace, and weigh down the shelves there (okay, once I build them). But a fair number are to give away. That book on Paris is for a friend who secretly lives in France. The Yes Minister book goes to a former colleague in China, who was addicted to the television program, and who speaks with a clipped British accent when he speaks English. Several are for the oldest boy and his status quo. The book on Florida is for a pal who is living there on a temporary basis (until she regains her sanity) and moves back to New England. The book about Boston bike rides is for a girl in a Boston burb who keeps crashing into trees. I’m hoping this book will get her on to safer bike paths. Some I got for the better half to read. And most of the rest will be utilized when the Summer Reading Urge surfaces in one of the denizens lurking and whiling at the Summer Palace, here on the pacific western shores of the lake they call Sheepscot Pond.