The Kitchener-Waterloo branch of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) will be holding its annual book sale at the end of April. I’ve already got the dates in my calendar. This two-day sale of used books is tremendously popular. And since it takes place just around the block from where I live, I have easy access both to the sale itself and to carrying over a box or two of books for donation. The CFUW accepts only items in good condition and only for the two days prior to the sale. The cars, vans, and, yes, trucks pulling in to the sale site’s parking lot during those two days to drop off bags and boxes of books overwhelms the normal quiet flow of traffic on surrounding streets. So many people giving away books they have purchased or received as gifts. And on the days of the sale, even more people arriving to stock up on five or ten more books for their shelves.
I don’t know if anyone studies the migratory patterns of books. It would, I think, be a fascinating science, whether one specialized in non-fiction encyclopaedic sets or small-press literary fiction. Electronic tagging of individual books, common enough these days even in our public libraries, aided by radar or satellite tracking ought to make the seasonal or yearly migrations scientific child’s-play to follow. I wonder what it would reveal.
I have a box in my basement that has been there throughout the year. I have it labelled – book sale books. It is about half full at the moment, but it will be full when I walk it across to the CFUW book collection. What books make it into this box?
- Duplicates. Yes, I periodically still find the odd duplicate in amongst our books. But fewer, ever fewer.
- Duds. Some books I am so disappointed by that even after a single reading I am prepared to set them on their way to potentially more hospitable homes. I have mixed feelings about this. If I really felt some book was a bad book, could I in good conscience pass it on to others? Would I pass along a book that I couldn’t even bring myself to recommend to anyone? There will be sleepless nights ahead.
- Deadwood. Some books just seem to take up space. I’ve read them, I’ve been mildly entertained, but our relationship seems to have come to an end. Time to move on. You would not believe how hard it is to decide that a book falls in to this category. Some that have entered the book sale books box mysteriously find their way back on to my shelves before the box leaves the house. I don’t know how that happens.
There is one further category of books that make it into the book sale books box. These are placed in the box with regret. Casualties of expediency. It turns out that a book shelf will only hold a finite number of books, even if I stack them double. These are the hardest books to let go. But they go knowing that their place on the shelf will only be taken by a book I love at least as much and cannot yet bring myself to let go.
In a year, more than one-third of the books I read come from the public library. That includes electronic books which I sometimes read on my computer, not yet having given in to the eBook movement. That still leaves at least a box full of books that I will acquire over the course of a year. And another box that will be setting some books free on their continuing migration. Long may they wander.