On The Road: Middletown and Ridgefield

~Olia~

Today was the opening day of the MAYHEM season. We opened the season slowly by attending two booksales, 3-2-1 in Middletown, CT and a large sale in Ridgefield, CT.

Middletown, CT
http://www.wesleyan.edu/library/friends/
Olin Memorial Library
Wesleyan Campus
252 Church St

We were very excited for the Middletown sale and we headed there first. It took us close to an hour via I-91 before we arrived on a picture-esque street in the heart of the Wesleyan community. None of us had ever been to the Middletown Public (Olin Memorial) Libary so we had no idea what to expect. Here, it is important to take a break and say how important book sales are to libraries in terms of fund raisers; please support your local library. That being said, if you are on the market for newer or gently used books, you may wish to avoid this particular sale. On Saturday May 02, the books here were on sale for $2 for a standard size grocery paper bag. Usually we end up using more than one of these bags and spring for a second and sometimes even third bag. Today, this was not the case. Most of the books at this sale were very dated. They may have had titles such as "The Coming of the Civil War: How to Deal with the Months Ahead" or "A Vaccine for Polio: Can It Be Done?" Unfortunately most books were dates from the 1960's, 1970's and early 1980's and did not seem to have much vintage value (we are not antique dealers, collectors or appraisers). Many of the older children's books were in poor condition, but the adult books, although older, and many lacking dust jackets, were in reasonable condition. Having found little, we stuffed dollar bills into the honor-system cash box and headed on I-691 to I-84 and greener pastures; ie Ridgefield.

Ridgefield, CT
472 Main St
203-431-8766

At one point while browsing this sale I thought to myself "the happiest moment of my life would be to come here on a bag sale event." We arrived in Ridgefield at noon and proceeded down Ridgefield's beautiful tree-lined streets to the Ridgefield Public Library. The sale was being held in the back parking lot in two huge, fully covered and sided tents. At first glance the prices were very average ($3 for a hardback, $2 for a trade paperback, $.50 for a paperback and so on) and some books had been specially priced (higher) but we'll get to that. Overall, this sale had one of the largest selections at a book sale all year long. Certain well-organized sections were better stocked than other, the trade paperbacks were almost book store quality and quantity, while the humor section left more to be desired. We could not find the children's section, but we assume it was inside the main library. We found out that this location will be hosting a bag sale on Monday so we will be returning to find some great deals. Although, as I mentioned the selection here was excellent, Olia got "The Nasty Bits" by Anthony Bourdain and "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer, some of the specially marked books were not...reasonable. For example, a table marked "new releases" and priced at $5 a piece, held paperback copies of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible," which was published in 1998.

Tomorrow we will be heading to bag sales in Newington, CT and Avon, CT and a library book store in Bristol, CT.