A friend chauffeured me in style to the Green Valley Book Fair in Mt. Crawford yesterday. I took a pocketful of cash (credit cards and checks are also accepted) but ended up not buying a lot — one novel and a couple of memoirs. Had I been shopping for Christian fiction or nonfiction, I could have filled twelve baskets, but I was happy just to peruse the aisles and pick up a gem here and a gem there.
Looked like there were a lot of bargains for families with small children. Lots of travel guides, though none to any place I plan on going. Those little kits they carry at Barnes and Nobles and Borders, they ones that let you give a mini-manicure or grow a tiny little garden of grass — they were on sale for a buck. If you missed The Historian, it’s there, plenty of copies for all.
It was a fun day and a beautiful drive, with good conversation and a delicious lunch, but my new vow is to cut back on my book purchases and to begin releasing some of my old books into the wild. My husband and I have a semi-retirement dream that will eventually necessitate a radical reduction in material goods, and there’s no time like the present for beginning.
I have made a promise to myself not to return to the GVBF until I have actual shelf space for more books.
I have made that same promise over and over…and yet I walked out of the Gordon Avenue Library booksale this year with 33 books!
Rachel has sold me on Bookmooch, though as Gary points out, I won’t really be reducing the number of books we have now. I hope I can reduce the number of new books I buy, anyway.
We drove by the Gordon Ave sale first thing in the morning on that Saturday and the line was already out to the street.
I just hate to get rid of any. But with over a hundred at home that I haven’t read yet, I should at least stop buying. Except for school. And for book discussions. And during the Book Festival. And during the Green Valley Book Fair. And during the Gordon Avenue booksale.
[...] try. I pick up a book I bought at the Green Valley Book Fair. This was a nonfiction book about the author’s struggle with a chronic headache and her [...]