Thursday, September 22, 2016

Used Book Sale at Fort Mason

This week the Friends of the SF Public Library are holding one of their twice yearly used book sales at Fort Mason. It's not really the place to go if you are looking for a particular book, but browsing can be fun, &, with prices topping out at $3, there's not much risk.

My strategy is to walk along the tables until something speaks to me, like this technical manual about regular expressions, in Polish.

The exception to the $3 maximum is the section for rare & collectible books, which has some amazing items. Above is a page from Street Types of Great American Cities (1896), which claims to be edifying & whose manner is exquisitely condescending, cynical, sexist & racist.

Even after examining the contents, I had no idea what was going on here.

I also have no idea what the "I" & "A" stand for here. It probably covers anyone above the age of puberty.

The Big Book Sale continues through Sunday, when everything goes for a dollar. On Wednesday afternoon the majority of customers were buying in bulk & required shopping carts, so be prepared for long checkout lines.

§ The Big Book Sale
September 21 - 25, 2016 / 10 AM - 6 PM
Fort Mason Center's Festival Pavilion 

Hardcovers: $3 / Paperbacks: $2 / Children's Books: $1 / All Media: $1
All items will be $1 on Sunday, September 25th. 

4 comments:

Lisa Hirsch said...

Intersex

Asexual

Civic Center said...

Is the Q for Queer or Questioning? I bet Lisa Hirsch knows.

Just cleaned out my two narrow bookcases down to collectibles and reference, and in fact you may be running into some of my discards. Have been doing a lot of reading while commuting lately and the SF Public Library Main Branch has become an interesting source for weird things I wouldn't ordinarily seek out, like "Gods & Kings," a dual biography of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, written as a classic Rise-and-Fall tragedy.

Axel Feldheim said...

OK, got it, Lisa. I would not have divined "Asexual" on my own.

Michael: Google is coming up with either "Queer" or "Questioning" for the Q. It also shows some sites using the A to stand for "Ally" instead of "Asexual." And of course I had to Google Alexander McQueen & John Galliano while I was at it.

Civic Center said...

Dear Axel: Glad to know that you are using Google for Good.