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Publication Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Menlo Park book fair, auction this weekendCrowd-drawing annual event benefits library's literacy programsBy Renee Batti It will be a rewarding weekend for those of grand addictions: Chocolate connoisseurs, head north to San Francisco's Ghirardelli Square for the square's annual chocolate festival. Beer and sausage aficionados, hop on a plane to Cincinnati's Oktoberfest -- or if you're really in the mood, to Munich's original festival. Now book lovers, don't you feel lucky? On this same weekend, you don't even have to leave the Peninsula to indulge yourselves: The Bay Area's granddaddy of used-book fairs is set for this Saturday and Sunday, September 20 and 21, at the Menlo Park Civic Center. The Menlo Park Friends of the Library's annual Book Fair and Auction -- which attracts passionate readers and book collectors from all over the Bay Area -- will kick off at 9:30 Saturday morning and continue until 5 p.m. On Sunday, the sale lasts from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and is followed at 2 by an oral auction. The event raises tens of thousands of dollars for children and adult literacy programs of the Menlo Park Library. There will be more than 40,000 books, videos and cassettes for sale, according to organizers. Prices begin at 50 cents, with most items in the $1 to $2 range. Open space at the Civic Center -- the grounds stretching between the library and City Hall -- will be a sea of tables laden with books, organized by category. Art, fiction, cooking, photography, sports, travel, gardening, religion, health care and history are among the 30-plus categories, according to Tim Goode of Friends of the Library. Books for the Sunday auction will be in the City Council Chambers, and written bids will be taken all day Saturday and Sunday until 11:30 a.m. George Fox of Pacific Book Auction Galleries of San Francisco will be auctioneer. Friends member Jackie Drew, who has spearheaded the auction for many years, says items of special interest that will be on the auction block include: ** A 1915 edition of "Mother Goose," by Eulalie Osgood Grover, illustrated by Frederick Richarson. ** An 1824 edition of "Works of Virgil," translated by John Dryden. ** "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," by Gene Roddenberry, first printing, inscribed prior to 1979 publication date "To Al Coppel -- a real novelist." ** "The Legacy of the Civil War: Meditations on the Centennial," by Robert Penn Warren, first edition. ** "Twas the Night Before Christmas," by Clement C. Moore, illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith, 1912, first edition. ** "Misfortunes of the Immortals," by Max Ernst and Paul Eluard. ** First editions by Nabokov, Stegner, W.H. Hudson, Edith Wharton and others. The Civic Center is located between Laurel and Alma streets, just south of Ravenswood Avenue. |
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