Plugging a fun and useful site...

Well, shortly after noting that ABE has "seeded" book blogs with some interesting (if ABE related) story thoughts, I received an email from the couple who run Book Sale Finder. The letter provided some interesting background:

My husband, Tom, and I began publishing information about used book sales 12 years ago. Since 1994 we’ve collected and publicized information about thousands of book sales. In that time we’ve moved from a printed version ("Guide to Used Book Sales in New England", followed by "Book Sales in America") to the Internet.

They have, apparently started posting shows on "Google Sale Maps" (link to follow). The intent being to allow people to find sales throughout a region and plan a weekend outing...sounds like a great idea to me.

I am the first to admit that the amount/color scheme of the ads on the site can be jarring...but the content is second to none. We use it reasonably often if/when we are jaunting off for one reason or another to see if there might be some books calling out to us. They do a good job keeping far too many book fairs/sales organized. They also note which libraries run ongoing sales/shops.

Every now and then, we happen upon amazing things at these sales...though attend them primarily for reading copies and the like. The social dynamics of such sales are amazing. My personal favorites are the people who sweep whole piles into their copious bags (or, in one notable case, spread their arms over a table and declared they were "taking the entire table")...then they go hunker in a corner and vet the wheat from the chafe. There is often a nice, performance art, theatre of the absurd quality. Enjoy.