San Francisco Book Sale 2009
Last week I had a chance to stop by the 45th Annual San Francisco Book Sale which was held at the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion. The place was filled with books. According to the event’s website it is the biggest book sale on the west coast. The five-day event features 300,000+ books in over 50 categories.
I arrived to the sale early and as expected the line was extremely long. Some of the people had arrived five or six hours early just to get a good place in line. yikes! These people are bonkers. All this before the book sale even starts. Once you get inside, that’s where the real madness begins. Old ladies run around throwing elbows, so they can snag vintage microwave cookbooks. Book dealers play laser tag with the ISBN numbers on the back of the books, all in the hopes of finding that rare gem.
With 300,000 books to choose from, you would think I would be rolling out of the sale with a small submarine filled with books. That wasn’t the case. I found a few issues of Graphis, a couple of rare kids’ books and and a smidgen of good ephemera. All in all it wasn’t a bad day, but not as much as I was hoping for.
Anyone else have a chance to stop by the sale?
