Personal favorite book buying places

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Personal favorite book buying places

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12wonderY
juny 20, 2012, 4:57 pm

I've been to a Half-Priced Books store, and that was lots of fun, but the older, nicer books I'm drawn to were shelved in a special place and had special price tags, as well. Besides yard sales and antique malls, the very best place I have to acquire my treasures is a once-a-year book sale in my town of Parkersburg, WV. Trinity Episcopal Church has a sale that lasts an entire week. The books completely fill their church hall, spilling into classrooms as well. On monday morning, the line wraps around the block, with serious book buyers getting up before light and equipped to brave the cold and rain, but still squeeze through the crazed hordes and tables once the doors open. The book genres all have their allotted and traditional places. You can't drop and crawl under tables to get to the next section, because there are still piles of book-filled boxes under the tables. Nobody else seems interested in the old clothbound novels at the end of the room, and they are usually priced at 25 cents. On Thursday, prices are slashed in half and Friday, a grocery bag full of anything you want is $1.

I usually limit myself to $100, spread out over the week. It takes several days for the stuff under the tables to surface. Lunch and dinner are available, and there are old friends I can count on seeing there at least once. My daughter brought her new boyfriend with one year, and we were both impressed by his selections. (He's now my SIL.)

It's always the first week of November.

2amysisson
juny 20, 2012, 5:11 pm

I'm envious of that book sale you described above!

The Houston Public Library does a once-a-year sale at our convention center, so it's rather large, but I haven't made it yet due to a perpetual conflict that same weekend.

Oh, and in the small world category.... my parents are from Wheeling, WV, so I spent many vacations visiting relatives there. In fact, my aunt and uncle still live on "the island." (And may I say that I still miss Wheeling's DiCarlo's pizza?!)

3fuzzi
juny 20, 2012, 6:24 pm

Hmm, booksale in WV in November...I'll have to see if my calendar is open...

:D

4MDGentleReader
juny 20, 2012, 11:05 pm

I wasn't sure where Parkersburg was. 4 hours, 55 minutes from me. A long drive and my bookie friends moved to Vancouver, Canada last year. I did check, though - it is not the same weekend as my November board gaming convention. Hmmmm. I am pretty sure my friends who are now in Canada have been to the Parkersburg sale. Some book sale in WVA anyway. Maybe they'd come back for an early Thanksgiving with their families and we could go to the sale. Oooh, the gaming convention I was speaking of is the weekend before and those same friends usually go to that, too.

My family and I go WVA every summer, but we go just over the border from Winchester, pretty much - much closer to where I am, although my other family members come from 3 other states - mostly by air.

I went to a pretty cool book fair near Plano, Texas one summer. Not as extensive as the Parkersburg one, though. And, probably at least as far from Houston as Parkersburg is from me. The summer I went to the Plano book sale, I was spending 3 weeks in Dallas. I spent much of my free time at Half Price books and at the antique center at Love Field. Sadly, my aunt's library had burned just before my trip. Happy for me, though. Picture this - hundreds of books to look for that I am buying for someone else and shipping off as soon as I am done reading them. The fun of the hunt when looking for a particular edition, the knowledge that ultimately I will spend none of my own money and won't need to find space for them. Bliss.

For 31 years, Goodwill had a used book sale In November at the Washington convention center in Washington, DC. 250,000 books. I used to help sort the books year round that would ultimately end up in the sale. Talk about an awesome volunteer job! They gave it up 10 years ago. Very sad.

5MDGentleReader
juny 20, 2012, 11:14 pm

2wonderY-

Wait a minute - you LIVE in Parkersburg?!? Lucky you. I've never been to Parkersburg, although I've been to Charleston and to Elkins and also to Yellow Springs and Wardensville (these last two are waay east - not far from Winchester, VA).

6nessreader
juny 22, 2012, 2:08 pm

You're all shopping in America aren't you? I use

the few remaining 2nd hand places on Charing Cross Road (high rents, high prices, but some bargain penguin paperbacks) and

a lot of mooching in charity shops like Snoopers Paradise in Brighton.

The place I work has brilliant remainders and some fun 2nd hand - got a pretty illustrated Tennyson recently, more or less cos I fell hard for the artwork. Pre raphaelite line drawings in sentimental poses.

There's a vintage childrens place in highgate, near Marx's cemetary, called Ripping Yarns. It's not cheap but they have lush edwardian things with faded gilt pictures on the spines.

7amysisson
juny 22, 2012, 4:10 pm

^6 nessreader, you've reminded me of a lovely trip to England and Scotland. My husband and I spent a whole day going to bookstores, including the lovely secondhand stores on Charing Cross Road. :-)

8nessreader
juny 28, 2012, 9:22 am

^7 amysisson, what fun that sounds. But the weight is a shocker when you're carting it longdistance you poor creatures. (And then one gets torn between kilos and maybe not seeing the same thing again..)

I saw a bio of Sir Harry Smith (english general, Heyer uses him as hero for Spanish Bride + he named the town Ladysmith after his wife Juanita ) in Winchester this spring + am kicking self that I passed on it. In self defence it was v jingoistic + empire building and I don't care for milit hist as a genre.



currently reading: actually it's a spanky barely used copy but sagas of the icelanders is deff pre-1950

9seawerth
juny 28, 2012, 5:51 pm

I find most of my books at estate sales on the last day, the last couple of hours of the sale when everything is at least 50% off. Sometimes, they are even free!

102wonderY
juny 29, 2012, 3:03 pm

Free is good!

112wonderY
jul. 9, 2012, 7:26 am

Andrew Carnegie built one of his libraries in Parkersburg, WV. When the community outgrew it and built something modern on another campus, one of our leading citizens eventually acquired it and it became the Tran-Allegheny Book Store. Mr. Saycash died two years ago and his family lost no time emptying the building and closing the store.

Driving by it the other day, I reflected on how the exterior didn't even come close to reflecting the beauty of the insides. When my girls were younger, one of our things to do for fun was to go hang out at this bookstore.

I see there is still a short video showing the interior -
http://www.wchstv.com/traveling/2006/twv060525.shtml

What the video misses is the wood panelled walls, the grand fireplaces in each room, the front balcony space large enough to house a symphony orchestra, the wonderful stained glass windows, including a skylight directly above the spiral stairs.

Eventually, there was nothing further I wanted to buy. The stock never seemed to change after a while, so I visited less often. But now and then, the building itself would pull me back for another appreciative visit.

Before the advent of internet search and purchase, Mr. S. managed to find a set of Book Trails for me. Some of my favorite books still have the atmosphere of this place clinging to them.

12fuzzi
jul. 9, 2012, 7:32 am

Thank you for sharing that video and information. It is sad that so many book stores have gone out of business.

132wonderY
ag. 28, 2012, 8:38 am

I see that today's paper has the first official notice of the annual Trinity Book Sale in Parkersburg, West Virginia:
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/564606/Trinity-Episcopal-s...

I've got a spare bedroom if anyone wants to come for it.

14Marchpane
ag. 30, 2012, 10:22 am

Thank you for this post! I have always found something(s) nice at the Trinity Episcopal sale, though we don't always make it there.

I try to make it to as many book sales as possible at either pole of Ohio (Northeast and Southeast, between which I presently divide my time) and would like to put in a plug for a couple of outstanding places:

Athens County Library: at the Athens branch, monthly Friends of the Library sales are held I believe on second Saturdays.
They also maintain an ongoing shopping cart in the lobby with some special stuff. AND: the library has a free box that's a lot more than a box...

AAUW book sale in Wooster, Ohio: usually in the fall, and a blockbuster along the lines of the Parkersburg WV Trinity Episcopal November event. It's at the Wayne County, Ohio fairgrounds.

Also in Wooster usually the very first weekend of November, the Buckeye Book Fair at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) auditorium has at least 82 Ohio authors/illustrators and their books.

Now here's an idea: take a book sale tour loosely following the North-South migration pattern up the Muskingum watershed between Ohio's dairy country and Appalachian Ohio/Wood County West Virginia. There are some astonishing places on the way(s) up and down this path, about three hours apart. Or six hours if you brake for books.

Does anyone else remember the big book giveaway sponsored by a women's organization in Southern Ohio-- used to rotate between various places between Cincinnati and Marietta? The last one I attended was at Marietta College a few years back. They used to have pallets of free (new) books with tons of Penguin paperbacks featured one year. Does it still exist?

152wonderY
ag. 30, 2012, 10:43 am

I've been to that book giveaway in Marietta as well. But it was lots of years ago.

*Pulling out my map of Ohio*

162wonderY
maig 23, 2018, 4:13 pm

Daughter moved to Cincinnati OH last year, and she's been gifting me tattered tomes ever since, checking on my LT account first.

She took me to Duttenhofer's Books on Sunday.
Ah! Completely the right odor walking in the door!

It's my new favorite bookstore. They value the old books, but not too dearly. I picked up a like-new Annotated Wind in the Willows for $12. And a few other books too. One for daughter, one for me, one for sister, two for me...

17gmathis
maig 24, 2018, 8:36 am

Always Buying Books--Joplin, Missouri; but the locals just call it "Bob's." A wonderfully organized jumble of everything, frequent Facebook posts to pitch rare TBSL oddities that just walked in their door, an occasional "Bob's Gone--Ladies' Night Only" event, freebies on the front porch for nothing but a donation to a local charity, and a quirky, homey atmosphere that will keep you there for h-o-u-r-s!

http://alwaysbuyingbooks.com/

(And no, I'm not an employee, just a fan.)