In addition to its annual book sale, our local library has a few tables of books for sale year round, as well as a small locked book-sale room occasionally manned by a Friend of the Library. The room is stocked primarily with current hardcover fiction\u2014which interests me not at all, a couple of shelves of children\u2019s books, and a few overpriced first editions.<\/p>\n
Still, I\u2019ve found a few gems there, so I keep checking whenever I find the room open.<\/p>\n
Last fall I was amazed to discover the nine-volume set of Olive Beaupr\u00e9 Miller\u2019s Picturesque Tales of Progress<\/em>, a much sought-after treasure, in the library room for $15.00. I\u2019ve never seen it listed for sale for under $100.<\/p>\n I casually paid the library volunteer\u2026and waited until I got home to do an end-zone victory dance.<\/p>\n Just a few weeks later, a homeschooling friend went yard-saling with me. Dawn is perpetually amused\u2014and occasionally inspired\u2014by my hyper-organized approach to life, so I had a lot of fun showing her how I had carefully plotted our trajectory to hit the most yard sales with the least backtracking.<\/p>\n After about five hours in the Mississippi humidity, we were tiring out, and we knew we needed to get back to her home, where her brave husband Dan was caring for my four boys in addition to their two girls and two boys.<\/p>\n So as we approached the last couple of sales on my list, I was inclined to drive on by. The goods looked picked over and probably not worth the effort of getting out in the heat again.<\/p>\n But just as I eased past the driveway, I caught a glimpse of a bookcase out of the corner of my eye.<\/p>\n I just had to stop.<\/p>\n And there it was, lurking on the bottom shelf in a messy garage full of yard-sale rejects.<\/p>\n The fourteen-volume set of Hillyer and Huey\u2019s Young People\u2019s Story of Our Heritage.<\/em><\/p>\n For $10.00!<\/p>\n Fortunately, I had beaten Dawn to the finish line by a split second, so I claimed the prize. (I did, however, generously permit her to purchase the $10.00 set of My Book House<\/em> from the same shelf\u2026even though I had touched those first too.)<\/p>\n I hadn\u2019t been home for two hours that afternoon before I saw the Hillyer and Huey books, in slightly better condition than my just-acquired set, offered for sale online for $12.00.<\/p>\n Per volume.<\/p>\n I just know if I keep looking, one of these days I\u2019m bound to stumble across that rarest of all Landmarks, The Mysterious Voyage of Captain Kidd!<\/em><\/p>\n *****More stories like this are available at www.ConfessionsOfABookjunkie.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Contributors include Tina Farewell, Jan Bloom, Michelle Miller, and more!*****<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In addition to its annual book sale, our local library has a few tables of books for sale year round, as well as a small locked book-sale room occasionally manned by a Friend of the Library. The room is stocked primarily with current hardcover fiction\u2014which interests me not at all, a couple of shelves of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eclectic-bibliophile.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}