Library Book Sales

     My husband and I enjoy going to our library book sales that are held the first of April and October.  We both enjoy reading so this is a great time to stock up on books.  We joined the Friends of the Library so we could go on Sunday when they're not so busy.  There are table after table full of every kind of book imaginable.
     We found some of our favorite authors.  Marlin enjoys Clive Custler and Dick Frances.  I like Catherine Coulter's series with FBI Agents Savich and Sherlock.  I also enjoy the Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels.  Finding new authors that we haven't read before is always a treat.
     This year we found a book for our car fan son called "The Complete Book of Mustang."  He will spend hours looking at the pictures and reading about each car.
     I always manage to find a few books on writing that I add to my collection.  The one that really caught my attention was the Merriam-Webster Pocket Guide to Punctuation. (Second Edition)  I didn't know such a book existed but I know that I will use this book.  Often!  Here's what it includes:
          1.  Punctuation
          2. Capitals and Italics
          3.  Plurals, Possessives and Compounds
          4.  Abbreviations
          5.  Numbers
          6.  Quotations
          7.  Notes and Bibliographies
     Another book I found is called Researching Public Records by Vincent Parco.  He's a licensed private investigator and teaches college classes on "Researching Public Records" and "How to Get Anything on Anybody."  Sounds interesting, doesn't it?
     We always see friends there who are book hounds also and we spend time visiting. One of my friends found me a book called "How to Bulletproof Your Manuscript" by Bruce Henderson.  This is going to be a good book for a writer to read.
     I also bought the 2001-2002 Writer's Guide to Editors, Publishers and Literary Agents by Jeff Herman. This book is 917 pages so there's a lot of information in there.  It may be 10 years old but still very useful.
     While visiting with a friend, she got to telling me about an estate auction her and her friend went to a few years ago.  They had known the lady who's possessions were being sold.  They bought several boxes of papers along with other stuff and found out she was a closet writer.  The boxes were full of her stories and rejection slips.  My friend laughed and said the lady was a terrible writer but they admired her for the many hours she spent writing her stories.
     We got some great books  ($20 worth!)  and had a fun time visiting with friends.  Gotta love those book sales!

Karen Sperra