I Went to a Book Sale, and Now I Have Questions

Yesterday I braved the long lines and crowded aisles at my local Friends of the Library book sale, a bi-annual event in my area that boasts an entire warehouse full of all genres of books, movies, audio and music, puzzles and board games for all ages. It’s a well-organized, well-attended sale that’s well-known in the region, and I engage all my coping mechanisms one weekend every spring and fall so that I can hopefully find my own low-priced treasures.

Maybe I was just in an introspective mood, but as I perused the many, many selections, I found myself wondering: Were there always this many titles in the Outlander series and I legit just never noticed? Hey, did they move the travel section? Where are the hardcovers, again? How come I’ve seen this person on Twitter and never found their books in real life — oh my gosh, there it is!

As the years pass, you can always tell what’s fallen out of favor with the reading public (for example, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter are now consistently seen, despite their ongoing popularity for many people), as well as being able to tell what was a garage or attic clearout (most of the stock comes from donations), versus library discards. On the children’s shelves especially, I saw many older publications (Beverly Cleary, James Howe, Gary Paulsen), which are great stories, but just don’t translate for the new generation. For the first time ever, there was an entire rack devoted to graphic novels for kids, and it was full, unfortunately for me, mostly with titles Muffin has either already read or dismissed as not for him. But this rack also showed signs of having been browsed a lot just in the few hours the sale had been open, backing up my recently-developed theory that graphic novels are only going to keep growing in popularity. And when compared to the overstuffed (and unattended) juvenile chapter books section, this definitely indicates my observation on what’s truly popular with children (less words, more pictures) rings true.

The other thing that really sunk in was that I didn’t see any indie titles. Sure, used book sales often do acquire the mass market paperbacks and outdated non-fiction that clutters up people’s attics, or that stop circulating in libraries because tastes change. But I had to wonder — is that because readers are more likely to keep indie-pubbed books (because they were a gift, or they’re showing support for an author/community), or is it due to readers simply…not buying that much indie pub. The latter definitely gave me a moment’s pause.

And then Muffin called my cell, having a separation anxiety meltdown. While I was trying to head for the checkout line. Behind at least 20 other people who had finished their browsing and were just hoping to get out of there. So, yeah, ruminations got pushed aside.

When I got home, and showed off to my children what prizes I had found (and in a place that size, with that much inventory, you do have to hunt for them), I compared what I’d brought to hauls of previous years, and realized this was the least amount of books and movies since, well, ever. On the one hand, yes, I came in well under my allotted budget, which was cool. But, on the other, it was for the very discouraging reason of, Muffin’s already read that, I don’t like that genre, I could get this from the library, that’s too expensive if Muffin changes his mind, who knows what White Fang’s into nowadays. I also realized that certain categories — like the board games and jigsaw puzzles — held no appeal, not because we don’t like those things (we do), but due to the lack of something new. I don’t mean fresh from the factory; I mean, you can only look at the piles and piles of Life and Candyland and Monopoly for so long (in my case, I think 10 minutes is my limit) without wanting something else.

And, yes, I’m aware that modern tabletop roleplaying games, that are presently on people’s kitchen tables rather than in their garages, won’t likely turn up at used book sales. But all the repetition I saw on the shelves (throughout categories and genres and format) led me to this musing: How many times do we have to cycle through the same old thing, before we decide it’s time to let go of the whole idea?

Yeah, I know, the point is bargain hunting, to each their own, one person’s trash… Blah de blah.

But, still…I have questions.