Summer brings us many gifts, one of my favorites being summer book sales at our local libraries. The Westport Library's annual sale begins this Saturday, July 19, and the Pequot Library's, considered one of the best in New England, kicks off July 25.
Previously read books can bring unexpected gifts, whose merits may best be expressed in this brief excerpt from Helen Hanff's "84, Charing Cross Road":
"I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages some one long ago has called my attention to."
A New York-based writer and lover of old books, Hanff wrote away to a London bookshop in 1949, and a 20-year friendship with shop staff famously blossomed. Hanff also understands why and what some of us treasure about books that have passed through other readers' hands before landing in our own.
What library book sales are you hitting this summer?
Photo credit: cobra libre / photo on flickr
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