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Salisbury's Library Book Sale
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 |
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