Name That Title!

So, I was at a book sale last night when my friend Paul said something startlingly good.

“The way I measure the worth of a sale is this -- if I can remember the title of at least one book the next morning it’s probably worth the time. If not, not.”

So last night after the five hour ordeal we decided to put his theory to the test. We stashed the bags of books in the family room and laid down the ground rules. Any book we’d bought for the store or the mall didn’t count – the challenge was to remember something we thought worthy of listing online. The minute I woke up at five a.m. I remembered two technical books I bought on horology – Practical Benchwork For Horologists and Watch Escapements. I ran downstairs, rooted around in the bags, found both easily, and saw that I had both titles right. Yay! Then I ran back up to the computer and researched them and – voila! – two winners!

I could hardly wait to see if Eric was as successful, but a full hour and a half crept by before I heard him stirring. Immediately I flew up the stairs like a woman chased by the devil.

“So, do you remember anything?”

“Yeah, but just one,” he replied. “The Centennial History of the American Florist.”

I remembered that one too, but only that it had something to do with florists. I couldn’t recall the title, so I guess it doesn’t count. Eric picked it though, just as I had picked the horology titles, so I guess it stands to reason that we’d each remember our own. I checked his out while he was in the shower and, once again, found it worthy. While this is hardly empirical evidence, I do believe that Paul and his thirty-plus years of bookselling experience is on to something here.

Last fall this sale’s attendance had dropped like Target stock after they’d supported gay-bashing politicians, but this year it thrummed and hummed with scanner wielding strangers in numbers so vast they looked like a conga line in Rio at Mardi Gras. Strangers is  the key word here though because both Eric and I looked hard to see if we recognized anyone other than the usual cast of long-time sellers and the three troublemakers. To our amazement, we recognized almost no one else. Could it be that the turn-over rate in the “you too can make $2-5K a month scanning books” sweepstakes is climbing ever higher? Again, I have no empirical evidence, but I do believe so because even the most ardent haven’t been spotted lately. Of course they’ve been replaced by newcomers who, for the most part, seem to approach bookselling  with the identical mindset – get in there faster than the speed of light, fire up the weapon, and scan everything that doesn’t move even if it’s been scanned a hundred times. If I’m right about the accelerating rate of seller recycling it will soon require its own processing plant.

What drew so many to last night’s sale was probably the fact that the library appeared to advertise 100,000 books when in fact I think they were just trying to be humorous. There were really LESS books than usual, especially in the specials room, and most of the over-priced rare books were the same offerings from last time. I suspect there might have been some disappointment but I didn’t hear any, though I don’t really pay much attention to the undercurrent. As long as it’s peaceful I am happy to remain in my own private zone.

I am, however, anxious to try Paul’s theory again. There’s only a very few FOL sales coming up, but I should get at least two more tries before the summer draught. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of Name That Title!