Friends of Greenville Library Book Sale!

I love book sales. If I drove more, I'd want this little gem:

As it is, I'll just settle for hitting every single book sale I hear about with my mother-in-law and scouring garage sales for these pieces of paper magic.  Because books aren't just reading to me.  The best description I can find about how I read is found in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling in the chapter entitled "The Very Secret Diary."  It goes like this:

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June.  Mouth hanging open, Harry saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen.  His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward; the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.

Alright, it doesn't really happen that way, but it might as well.  That is exactly how it feels to me to read a good book.  I feel like I am a part of it as it becomes a part of me.  And so, I am absolutely thrilled when a good book sale comes my way!

Today Beth and I had the privilege of attending the semiannual Friends of the Greenville County Library System book sale half-price day.  I walked away, not with Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, as I had hoped, but with 18 books, three movies, and the first season of House nonetheless, all for a whopping $14.something.  I think that's a sufficiently good bargain, don't you?  And now, for the sheer relish of it, as I'm sure you're not quite as excited as I am, I shall list my finds.

The Hitchhiker's Quartet by Douglas Adams
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (I own all of the books already, but in various cover versions and I'd like to have a complete hardback set)
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer
Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren
Pippi Goes on Board by Astrid Lindgren
Brave New World Revisted by Aldous Huxley
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Green Mile by Stephen King (I don't have a copy a of the book, but I love it.  I do have the movie).
Carrie by Stephen King (Please let me know if this too scary for me.  I recently read an article about how King's wife rescued this story from the trash when he threw it out and asked him to finish the story, and how this one book changed his life and transformed him into one of the best known authors of our time).

The three movies I bought are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bruce Almighty, and Slumdog Millionaire, the last of which I've never seen. 

I've only just realized that I've only read two of the books: Harry Potter and The Green Mile.  Several of these are required reading in many high schools, but we never covered them in mine.  Now's the time!

 I'd write more, but I'm too excited to brand and find homes for my new books amongst my shelves!  Have I ever mentioned that my mama got me this amazing personalized library embosser for my birthday?  Being named Loralee, I never had those pencils or a keychain with my name on them come back-to-school time, but this totally makes up for it!  I mean, that and the fact that I love my name and didn't have to be known by my first and  last names all through school.

Yayayay!