The 25th Annual Book Sale –

Browsing The Booth’s Bounty Of Books

By Jan Howard

Books, books, books! The 25th anniversary of the C.H. Booth Library’s annual Labor Day Book Sale will offer over 150,000 books and related items.

The book sale features thousands of books in 70 categories, including rare books, fiction, biography, children’s, cooking, art, gardening, war and military, biographies, crafts, Christmas, chess, travel, local interest, sports, history, mathematics, nature, photography, reference, and many others.

Computer software, LPs, games, and puzzles will also be available.

The sale, one of the largest in New England, will be held, rain or shine, from September 2 to September 6 at Bridgeport Hall on the campus of the former Fairfield Hills Hospital. The hours are September 2, 9 am to 5 pm; September 3, 10 am to 5 pm; September 4, 9 am to 4 pm; September 5, 2 to 6 pm; and September 6, 10 am to 4 pm.

 Admission of $10 from 9 am to noon and $5 from noon to 5 pm will be charged only on September 2. Numbered tickets go on sale at 7 am at Bridgeport Hall.

On the first day of the sale, hundreds of people will be in line by the time the doors open. Some of them will have been there since the early hours of the morning.

Most of the people who are early in line are dealers, who may be looking for one particular type of book, or those that are out of print. Town Historian Dan Cruson, a longtime volunteer at the book sale, said he has seen “people who amass eight or nine boxes of books and then put half of them back.”

On September 2 and 3, books are sold at the marked price. On September 4, books are sold at half the marked price, from 9 am to 2 pm. From 2:30 to 4:30 pm on Monday and again on Tuesday from 2 to 6 pm, books are $5 per bag. Leftover books are free on Wednesday from 10 am to 4 pm, with donations accepted.

Refreshments are available September 2 to 4.

All proceeds benefit the Booth Library.

The sale’s highlight will again be the rare book room. Many of these hand-picked gems have decorative leather bindings. Among the valuable books to be offered are a complete 24-volume 1869 leather-bound set, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray; seven first editions of poetry by Lord Byron, dating from 1816; and two Tasha Tudor second editions, Alexander the Gander and Pumpkin Moonshine from the late 1930s. Sophie Tucker’s signed autobiography and a complete 1960 Encyclopedia of World Art, library reference quality, are examples of fascinating finds.

Classics signed by well-known illustrators are also well represented this year, such as Known Fables signed by Antonio Frasconi, plus two Limited Editions Club books in their sleeves, Poor Richard’s Almanacks signed by Norman Rockwell and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man signed by Lynd Ward.

Volunteer John Renjilian, a rare book dealer, provides his expertise yearly to identify rare or valuable books so they can be properly priced.

Where do all the books come from? Joanne Zang, who has coordinated the sale for the entire 25 years, said the bulk of the books, or about 90 percent, come from residents. One particular donation Mrs Zang remembers from years ago was from the home of Scrabble inventor James Brunot.

“It was one of the places I really enjoyed,” Mrs Zang said. “Mr Brunot was moving into a nursing home and offered his books to the library sale so we went to his home to collect them. He had a wonderful house and book collection. And he signed my Scrabble board!”

Brand new books were given to the book sale when a book publisher resided in town, she said.

The book sale has also been the recipient of specific collections, such as last year’s collection about the Vietnam War.

Last year, there was also a huge donation from the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, Mrs Zang said. “There was a tractor trailer load of books that came to us.”

Mr Cruson remembers one collection that came to the library sale years ago as a result of the death of a local playwright. “His wife was getting rid of everything,” he said. “We even found a collection of plays. There was an intriguing library of Marxist-Leninist literature from the 1930s.”

Books come from all over, Mr Cruson said. Some are donated when people are moving out of town. Others come from a deceased resident’s estate.

Interesting items are sometimes found in the books, including $155 in fives and tens that flew out of an old biology book Mrs Zang was about to throw out.

Recently an original death certificate from 1944 in New York was found in a book during a sorting and pricing session at the library.

Other items that have been found through the years include a gift certificate for flying lessons, photographs, and bookmarks of all types and quality, from cardboard to embroidery. One bookmark this year noted, “A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.”

Denise Kaiser remembers finding hand-embroidered bookmarks that were a little worse for wear, as well as tickets to plays, and notes. Gloria Palmer found one tap dancing shoe and several old photographs in a box of books donated to the sale.

Sometimes, when an item creates a case of the giggles in the finder, it is left in the book to give someone else a laugh.

Book sale volunteers, many of whom work year round on the book sale, have had one less item on their agenda in recent years. “We used to pick up additional books at other book sales,” Mrs Zang said. “We don’t do that any more. We have more than enough.”

One hundred fifty thousand books will be ready for dealers and local residents when the doors open on the first morning of the sale.