Not all book sales are created equal. I have mentioned in
the past the annual Westport sale which often features books
from the libraries of celebrities or New York City book
publishers. This weekend, the Town of Salisbury in
Connecticut is having a library book sale, and, as many
towns do, they have a preview evening on Friday that is open
to those willing to pay a fee to get in. Dealers and
determined collectors are the ones who usually take
advantage of this offer.

But Salisbury's preview evening is a little different.
First of all, they only have 8,000 books for sale, a number
that hardly invites serious book fiends. Second, they are
charging $25 admission, not the usual $5 or $10 that other
towns charge. But, admittedly, one gets more for his or her
money in upper-class Salisbury. Nowhere else that I have
seen includes a cocktail party as part of the opening
festivities.

But then, I thought, what book addict is going to pause for
alcohol when the possibility exists that there is a first
edition of a prized work that sipping the martini could put
in the hands of someone else? No, I concluded, the
addictions are fairly incompatible. Those who stand with
the martini glass in hand are simply not book lovers. They
prefer the scent of grape or grain to the musty smell of an
old book that has sat for years on the lower shelf of a
night table. They will never have their arms filled with
books as they stumble from table to table seeking treasures
that others have overlooked. Nor does the book addict have
need of the sharp taste of spirits to lift his own. What
can drink offer to one who thrills at finding a first
printing of the Second Revised Edition (the definitive
edition, mind you) of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring?
Such joys are longer lasting too, as the book lover finds
a proper place in one of many bookcases for the volume,
after lovingly straightening any page corners that have been
turned down by philistines who have failed to properly care
for the book. There the book resides with no direct sun to
fade its bright spine, to be brought out for admiration year
after year.

No, alcohol and books do not belong together any more than
drinking and driving. Libraries should stick to their mylar
book covers as cobblers should stick to their lasts.

--
Francis A. Miniter

Mesure is Medicine þauh þou muche ȝeor[n]e.
Al nis not good to þe gost þat þe bodi lykeþ,
Ne lyflode to þe licam þat leof is to þe soule.

William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman
Passus I, lines 33 - 35