Friends of Friends

There's a group called Friends of the SF Library and they host a huge-mongous book sale once a year. It's one of the juicier events for me. Tables and tables and tables stacked high with books. Old, new, unopened, throughly used, you name it, it's there. Since one of my greatest loves is walking the aisles in a public library, looking at the spine of each and every book, deciding on it's beauty and picking it out...
....this breakdown from the shelves is like looking in the vault, or the dumpster (depending on your kind of diving) of your favorite old library.
I've gone to a few years now and I'm still super impressed. It's basically run by these fabulous, old-school volunteers. The women and men that were probably your Health Ed or History teacher 20 years ago. They're so into it and it all feels so neighborhood-ly. Everyone seems to know someone there, we're all having a civilized glass of wine and browsing books. We're also filling our carts higher than our heads with these gorgeous paper pages...
I get lost in the romance of being in a warehouse of real, live books. It smells like books. For as far as the eye can see, it's books. People are communing with books. Slowly turning the pages of each book they pick up. Watching people get deep into a book, a few minutes later snap to and look around: How long have I been standing here reading? I better get this book.

I picked up books mostly in the reference section this year. And then, of course, that Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening now resides in my home library, as well.
It's awesome.