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skyringLifeline Bookfair came to an end yesterday after three days of bookery. Canberra folk tend to be big supporters of this. Think of long rows of trestle tables standing end to end in a huge exhibition hall, books laid down, spines up, three or four or five rows along each table.
The bookfair isn't a good place for meeting of eyes, so it's not the social event it could be. People generally slide slowly along the edges of the tables, heads down, eyes scanning the titles, oblivious to everyone else in the hall, everyone doing the same thing.
And every now and then you can see, if you have time to look, two people moving inexorably together along the edge of the same table until they bump into each other's backsides and give a little jump of embarassment.
That's pretty much how I found AwayWithFairies, who had driven up from Sydney and dropped in on the bookfair on her way back home. We chatted a bit before getting back into the looking for book bargains process.
The organisers had decided that enough people had given up buying books at half price to go down to the $10 a bag stage. This usually happens around two o'clock, and as I'd arrived about ten, I'd assembled all the books I wanted. So I had lunch and coffee, and chatted with Judy who runs a bookshop. We've been helping each other out for several years now, and we look after each other's books and help with trolleys when it comes time to check them all out. She's got a bad shoulder and finds it hard to move lots of books all at once. Besides which, she's a delight to talk with.
I helped her load up her car, and then went back, just to see if there was anything I might have missed on the tables, which is when I bumped into AwayWithFairies.
I filled up several bags with books for me to read (a small category), books for me to keep (even smaller), and books for me to give away (a lot).
I think I've got a couple of John Grishams there that I haven't read, but I won't know until I'm well into the first chapter.
I got a lot of books with an eye to giving them away to passengers in my cab. When I finally get to drive one, that is. BookCrossing on Wheels!
The bookfair isn't a good place for meeting of eyes, so it's not the social event it could be. People generally slide slowly along the edges of the tables, heads down, eyes scanning the titles, oblivious to everyone else in the hall, everyone doing the same thing.
And every now and then you can see, if you have time to look, two people moving inexorably together along the edge of the same table until they bump into each other's backsides and give a little jump of embarassment.
That's pretty much how I found AwayWithFairies, who had driven up from Sydney and dropped in on the bookfair on her way back home. We chatted a bit before getting back into the looking for book bargains process.
The organisers had decided that enough people had given up buying books at half price to go down to the $10 a bag stage. This usually happens around two o'clock, and as I'd arrived about ten, I'd assembled all the books I wanted. So I had lunch and coffee, and chatted with Judy who runs a bookshop. We've been helping each other out for several years now, and we look after each other's books and help with trolleys when it comes time to check them all out. She's got a bad shoulder and finds it hard to move lots of books all at once. Besides which, she's a delight to talk with.
I helped her load up her car, and then went back, just to see if there was anything I might have missed on the tables, which is when I bumped into AwayWithFairies.
I filled up several bags with books for me to read (a small category), books for me to keep (even smaller), and books for me to give away (a lot).
I think I've got a couple of John Grishams there that I haven't read, but I won't know until I'm well into the first chapter.
I got a lot of books with an eye to giving them away to passengers in my cab. When I finally get to drive one, that is. BookCrossing on Wheels!
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Date: 2006-09-25 01:22 am (UTC)The Tenth Justice
Dead Even (set at Columbia Law School)
The First Counsel
The Millionaires
The Zero Game
Identity Crisis
The Book of Fate