Rescued books

On Saturday past we were on our way to friends, around a half a block away from our destination, we drove past a charity shop and they were throwing books out, into a skip. I was amazed, almost in tears! I jumped out of the car, after ringing our friend and ordering her to bring bags - we were rescuing books.

We got to the two skips to find a small crowd of people there already. We asked the charity shop manager what was going on: too many books to sell and to display, so they would rather throw them out than try and rehome them in other shops or recycle them.

Stunned and amazed we filled bags with really good quality books - from kiddies Disney books to an old edition of Ernest Hemingway's works, to a compiled journal of poetry to modern novels - it was a smorgasboard of books. I figure that between the two of us, Almay and I carried away around 100 books. So many people stopped by and the books they picked up were of such a wide range - everything from Word and Microsoft XP manuals to DIY books, to cookery books. It was good to see though...but incredibly sad.

I have started a book exchange at work and have taken a load of the rescued books in to find new homes. PD James, John Gresham, Stephen King - all these authors will soon have someone else to entertain.

Poor books - fortunately most of them are safe. I reckon they tossed out around seven hundred books in those two skips. I don't think, having seen that, that my books will be going to charity shops again. If I can find someone to take them off my hands, I would rather do that. When I saw it happen it was my own personal hell, you know. Never again, charity shops, will you get my treasures I deign not to keep. They will be exchanged or stored, instead.