Bargain Hunters

Many of you are aware of my love-hate relationship with the Princeton Public Library. I love it in that it's a beautiful new facility, and really, who doesn't like a library? I hate it because, as we've detailed before, they want to charge $100 for "out-of-town" residents to get a card. (Don't even get me started. Last week, when trying to negotiate with J&J Trucking about delivering my extra cabinets they insisted that I was to be scheduled on the day they deliver in Mercer County because my address says Princeton... they were "not convinced" by my claim that I actually live in Middlesex County. It seems that the exact geographic location of my home can only be used against me. But, I digress.) So, back to the library. Today was the first day of the Princeton Library "Friends of the Library" Book sale. I love book sales. I regularly attend the West Windsor Library Book Sale, the South Brunswick Library Book Sale and of course the Annual Bryn Mawr/Wellesley Book Sale. The Wellesley sale is great because the last day of the sale is "box" day where you get to just fill up a box for a fixed price! The Princeton sale often has some good finds (like the first year I attended when I picked up a couple of old Princeton yearbooks for $2 a piece which were selling on Ebay for $25!) However, the down side to the Princeton sale is that it is a bit hoity-toity. These are, after all, USED, DONATED books. Sure, some of them may look new, but again, if someone else has previously owned them and then donated them to the library for sale, they are, in fact, USED. What can I say, I'm cheap. When I go to a book sale I like to see Hardcovers for $1. I'll go the $2 that South Brunswick charges, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Princeton? Sure, they have a more highbrow selection of books (rather than ten thousand copies of Danielle Steele, Janet Evanovich and Nicholas Sparks books) but $3 for hardcovers? That's not the worst of it! I'm browsing and I see a biography of Edith Wharton. I'm intrigued and figure I'll take it. I look inside the front flap-- they want $10! It's not autographed, it's not a first edition! Then I see "The Nazi Officer's Wife" again-- a book I'm interested in, what's it going for? $6 WHY?? "Foucault's Pendulum" is $3, a first edition of "The Dante Club" is $3, so which crazy "Friend of the Library" volunteer priced the Wharton book and the Nazi Officer's Wife?? The best of all? I'm browsing through the cookbook section and I spy a pristine copy of the Dean and Deluca Cook Book. I thought I would pick it up for the Mom in case she didn't have it. Is it $3? Of course not-- it's $20!! Okay, Dean and Deluca aren't coming to your house to make dinner, you're buying a USED cook book!

Then, I'm walking around pushing Miss B. in the Maclaren and carrying an armfull of books and one of the volunteer ladies kindly asks if she can put my books aside for me. Against my better judgment I say okay. What happens next? Well, after she tells me that she got confused and mixed my books up with some others I come back to my stack and everything looks okay. I step away for one moment and next thing I know one of the other book sale vultures is rifling through my stack of books. I indicate that I'm taking all of those books and now that I'm home I realize I'm missing a small book of French verse from 1888! I think the book vulture swiped it! (This is highly offensive to the book sale code of ethics, so book-stealer if you're out there--- shame on you!) ANYWAY. I guess it's my fault because I should have come prepared with bags, and I should have never let the volunteer obscond with my stack. Argh.

On the upside I did find a hard cover edition of King Ottokar's Sceptre (from the Tintin Series) and it appears to be entirely in Arabic. I'm hoping that'll bring something on Ebay. Maybe enough to afford that Dean and Deluca Cook Book! (Ha!)