a whole lotta booooooks

Friday morning I got up in the predawn hours, donned my bestest 'kick-ass sale' attire (redback boots, stretchy pants, loose top, manic expression) and headed over the hills and far away (well, over the Brown Mountain to Canberra - around 250km or a 3hr drive away)

It was time for the biannual Lifeline Book Fair

wheeeeeeeee!

Here's (part of) the haul this time......

Ahhh - I love the Book Fair! (ahhh I love the bigger hauling power of my new-old Subaru Forester!)

This time I think I snaffled the entire collection of old Readers Digest atlases..... got a few old bird/plant/shell books, Children's Brittanica, a hardback series on Australian gardening and loads more..... the kiddies were chuffed with a great newish set of childcraft encyclopaedias (with great colourful covers - just the thing for the school holidays that are now upon us at Sams Creek)


I looked longingly at a 1890s set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica...... but it was worth more than my entire haul!


sigh

This bookfair closes today... and the next one is March 2011...... (I'm dreaming new booky dreams already)

lifeline books...

That very booky girl Ampersand Duck alerted me to the existence of the Lifeline Book Fair a couple of months ago and my-oh-my am I ever pleased she did! Early this morning my daddy (and his very large ute) and I headed up and over the hills to Canberra and came back with......




....a very large ute load of old books - WHeeeEEE!!!!!

The Lifeline Bookfair is a mammoth event - it's held twice a year over 3 days (today was day one) at the exhibition centre on the outskirts of the city - inside the large pavilion about 150 000 books are organised into general categories, laid out on trestle tables. There seemed to be almost as many people trying to wind their way around the tables - all with that rather distinctive glazed expression worn by the determined book hunter.

I made a beeline for the 'sets' sign.... and claimed the entire table of weird old encyclopaedias, weird newer reference books and a couple of prizes (a 5 volume reference set of art for $30 - bargain!). I then decided this seemed as good a place as any to set up camp - and leaving my daddy in charge of the booty ('guard them dad - growl at any interlopers - grrrrrrr') I made scurried trips to the other tables to bring back more claimed goodies (a monster medical dictionary, well ok 2 of them, a huge atlas, the complete works of shakespeare....) There aren't many times when being a short, determined, fast moving female is an advantage - fortunately trawling the tables of the Lifeline Bookfair is one of them!

In no time at all I had amassed quite a pile - and soon I was given my very own Lifeline volunteer.... who almost as quickly had decided that I was quite possibly absolutely certifiable (I made the mistake of telling him - 'oh no - I don't read them - they're for my ARRRRRRRT')


It took the lovely Lifeline volunteers some time to tally up all my finds - then it was time to load up the ute and head back home - happy in the knowledge that my purchases will go to fund the numerous projects undertaken by Lifeline.... ahhhh I feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside (or maybe it's just residual car sickness...)



***oooh and in case you are worried - these books aren't destined for a fiery end.... and that's all I'm saying about their future fate at this point.....