• If possible, please hold large donations until after our Saturday and Sunday Sale Days.
• Books brought in a day or two before the sale may not make it onto the shelves that month. (If you wish to see them on display, plan accordingly)
• We're crowded. Please limit your Sale Day donations to a bag or two of books.

If you cannot attend the book sale, please drop by the Friends Bookstore located inside the Mitchell Park Library and Downtown Library and open during library hours. They are restocked regularly with a unique selection of books for all ages and interests.

 
Suggestions?

What's Special for March 2015?

Another strong sale in February, which was also held on the Valentine's Day weekend, a big thanks to all who spent their time with FOPAL either as a customer or volunteer! Also, a strong month for donations, as donors sent a steady stream of new books to us, which will be for sale this weekend.... Education & Language is a featured subject this month with two bays dedicated to what we're calling "the Calfee collection". Dr. Robert C. Calfee, a professor at Stanford University School of Education, and cognitive psychologist with research interests in the effect of schooling on the intellectual potential of individuals and groups. Look for books on: literacy skills, the nature of human thought processes, psychology of literacy and more in this unique collection. Right next to "the Calfee collection" you'll find a nice selection of books for Spring Holidays. Our Holiday section manager reports that she'll have a two shelf display of books on Easter, Passover, Earth Day, and Mother's Day. There's a new section in town...Jerry Stone has created a new section he's calling Vintage Treasures, these will be located next to the Computer section. The section for Games and Puzzles is overflowing, and its section manager Judy Wagstrom has all these offered for $2 to $6. Our Health section has a multiple like-new copies of, The Whole Soy Story, the dark side of America's favorite health food, by Kaayla T. Daniel, Phd, CCN. You can purchase this book used on Amazon for $10 or more or but it from FOPAL for a mere $3. Look for these books in the last set of bookshelves near the check-out line.

 
Preview Our Shelves

Check out some of the thousands of books that will be on sale this weekend using our shelf preview photos.

 
Feel Fulfilled, Help with FOPAL Fulfillments!

Learn the fulfillment process of FOPAL's successful e-commerce (the buying and selling of products or services conducted over the Internet) enterprise. With our on-line book sale business busier than ever we need volunteers to help prepare orders for packing and shipping. To help with this volunteer opportunity please email jherceg@fopal.org or call 650-494-1266.

Here's a big THANK YOU to the dozens of FOPAL volunteers who make this sale possible. It's in part because of our amazing volunteers that the FOPAL book sales are a great success. While attending the sale offer a "Thank You" to the volunteers you see. If you'd like to become a FOPAL volunteer please email jherceg@fopal.org or call 650-494-1266.

 
FOPAL Goes to Spring Share Faire!

Lucie Stern Community Center, Fireside Room & Patio, Sunday, March 15, 11am - 1pm: Friends of the Palo Alto Library will be joining Share Faire, by donating books from our extensive collection. If you'd like to attend this event Sunday, think about what you can bring... stuff to share - garden produce, books, clothes, crafts, toys, etc., AND learn new skills, AND enjoy activities for kids! This organization encourages lots of skills to be shared, check this event out at:

http://transitionpaloalto.org/2015/02/28/spring-share-faire-is-coming

 
FOPAL at PAMP Rummage Sale!

When: Sunday, March 15th, 2015
8:30am: Doors open for PAMP Members
9am - noon: Open to the public, FREE entry.
Where: Cubberley Community Center Pavilion.

This is the second year that FOPAL will be participating with the PAMP Rummage Sale to help buyers and sellers connect and find new homes for gently used clothes, toys, books and household items. Join FOPAL and PAMP on this fun day to gather with friends and recycle treasures.... http://pampclub.org

 
Education & Language

"At the March book sale there will be a display of selected books from the library of Robert Calfee. Calfee who died in October at the age of 81 was a prominent scholar in reading, literacy, and teaching. His interests grew out of his combined backgrounds in psychology and education.

All books displayed will be for sale. Those who may have known him from his posts at Stanford and UC Riverside may particularly enjoy this exhibit." -Linda Suzuki

 
Vintage Treasures

Check out the new Vintage Treasures section with a cool selection of vintage, antiquarian, and interesting old books all priced to sell. All genres represented including literature, history, reference, and more. These are located between the Fiction and Computer sections in the south-west corner. -Jerry Stone

 
General Fiction

"This month, look for two shelves of fiction by writers who hold MD degrees. These include, among others: Anton Chekov, classics; Michael Crichton and Stanislaw Lem, sci-fi; W. Somerset Maugham, classics; Alexander McCall Smith, mysteries and modern lit; and Peter Taylor, modern lit. The books are on display directly below books by authors who have won the National Book Award." -Marian Knox

 
Health

"To Soy or Not to Soy: The Health section has received too many brand new copies of The Whole Soy Story. If your doctor has suggested that you cut down on eating soy products, you need to read this book. Formerly considered a wondrous health food, research findings challenge its wide use. (Start looking at food labels: you'll be astounded at how often it shows up, hidden in foods where you never expected to find it!) Amazon lists this still-best-selling book, used, at twice our price. It's on our Specials Shelf near the cash table.

Last month we featured Herbal Medicine and Asian Medicine, and this month we've gotten some new and interesting titles, also, lots of brand new books throughout our shelves. Come check them out." -Verne Rice

 
Philosophy for March

"New arrivals in Philosophy are to be found on the top shelves of the right hand bookcase. This month's titles include: Ideas and Opinions by Einstein, The Engine of Reason by Churchland, Philosophical Fragments by Climacus, Elements of Argument by Rottenburg, The Art of Happiness by Epicurus, Complete Essays by Schopenhauer, McCormick's biography of Santayana and five books by the philosophical longshoreman, Eric Hoffer." -Nigel Jones

 
European Languages

"European Languages has a little over a shelf of books in Dutch, mostly fiction and thrillers, and some cookbooks. They are fairly recent and in very good condition. There are also management books in Dutch (a few are translations) in the Bargain Room. There are several large format photo books on the Czech Republic (with text in Czech and sometimes Russian and/or English too), and a little book of tinted photos of Carlsbad in 1900." -Susan Strain

 
Science Fiction

"In Science Fiction this month, we have a big selection of Military SF; authors like David Weber, Elizabeth Moon, John Ringo, Eric Flint and more. There's also an interesting selection of vintage SF magazines from the 1950s. The Fantasy section has a lot of classic horror and ghost stories, from H.P. Lovecraft to Rudyard Kipling." -Rich McAllister

 
March Judaica

"Come to the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion, literature, Jewish history, the Holocaust, Israel and other related subjects. This month look for The Jews in China; The Avengers - A Jewish War Story; Jesus First-Century Rabbi; the new joys of yiddish; California Jews; Freud\u2019s Moses; The Pawnbroker on DVD; To Tell at Last - Survival under false Identity, 1941-45; The Slopes of Lebanon by Amos Oz; God in Search of Man by Heschel; To Paint Her Life - Charlotte Salomen in the Nazi Era; The Face in the Mirror - Jewish Women on Mothers and Daughters" -Charlotte Epstein

 
March Humor

"Among this month's new arrivals are books by Tina Fey, Chris Rock and Myles na gCopaleen (one of James Joyce's favorite writers) as well as two classics of British humor, A Celebration of Monty Python and 1066 And All That. Also, in the cartoon section, we have an excellent copy of Art of the New Yorker.\240 In the David Sedaris section - on the bottom left - you will see five new arrivals: Barrel Fever, When You Are Engulfed In Flames, Dress Your Family, Squirrel and Naked." -Nigel Jones

 
Music in March

"As usual we offer books on a wide variety of musical topics including classical, rock, jazz, world music, and dance. This month look for Anthology of American Jazz Dance; Turn Up the Volume - A Celebration of African Music; Opera and the Morbidity of Music; Conditioning for Dance; The History of Rock N' Roll in Ten Songs; The Companion to 20th Century Music; What to Listen for in Music; Wunnnerful, Wunnerful - The Autobiography of Lawrence Welk; as I am - ABBA Before and Beyond; totally guitar - The Definitive Guide. Also come to browse our wide selection of sheet music." -Charlotte Epstein

 
Greeting Cards

"This month in Greeting Cards are the following special holiday cards: April Fools, Easter and Passover. Plus the regular individual cards, all on the cart outside the main book room. Inside the main book room, across from the cashiers are boxed cards. And, at the Mitchell Park Library, along with books for sale, are boxed greeting cards, in the FOPAL room just inside the library on the left. Happy Holidays." -Marda Buchholz

 
Ephemera

Check out what items in FOPAL's outside Ephemera Sale. You'll find not only "things that are important or useful for only a short time: items that were not meant to have lasting value" but also small electronics and furniture, art (framed or unframed), sheet music, home items, Cliff's Notes.... This month we received many paintings on canvas, frame these or paint over....

 
Teen Recommendations by Tristan Wang

Wringer, by Jerry Spinelli

The small town of Waymer celebrates an annual Pigeon Day, in which five thousand live pigeons are released from wooden crates to be shot down by observing entrants. As the tradition edicts, ten-year-old boys will receive the honor of becoming wringers, collecting wounded pigeons during the shooting and wringing their necks to end their misery. Enter Palmer LaRue, a kid who, unlike all his peers, is revolted by the pigeon shoots and consequently dreads the day he turns ten. But when a pigeon shows up outside his window and demands entrance, Palmer is faced with an ultimatum. Should he decline the pigeon to gain the acceptance of his friends? Or should he follow his conscience and open the window -- and take up the dreadful burden of keeping an unspeakable secret from everyone around him?

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

Miles Halter, a misfit teenager, is tired of his safe, eventless life in a Florida suburb. Desperate for adventure, he departs for Culver Creek Boarding School in search of what the dying poet Francois Rabelais referred to as the "Great Perhaps". A mixture of academic rigor, elaborate pranks, and intolerable student behavior, much awaits Miles in the unpredictable realm of Culver Creek. Before long Miles is introduced to the gorgeous, enigmatic, and emotionally unstable Alaska Young, and finds himself captivated by the sheer force of her personality. She launches Miles into the "Great Perhaps," which carries him through a labyrinth of emotions, propels him to the top of the world, and plunges him into a devastating tragedy. In a desperate struggle to make sense of it all, Miles figures that one thing's for certain: nothing is as translucent as it appears to be.

Unwind, by Neal Shusterman

In a dystopian future, a Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. A chilling compromise was reached: life is inviolable until the age of thirteen, after which parents can choose to have their children "unwound" -- dismantled and harvested for organ donation. Since all parts of an "unwound" child are preserved and transplanted, their life technically doesn't end. Or does it?

Enter Connor, Risa, and Lev, three teens who "kicked AWOL" -- on the run from the authorities. All are scheduled to be "unwound" for their own reasons. They are united by a single goal: surviving until the age of eighteen, when they will be considered legal adults and no longer subjectable to "unwinding". As their lives hang in the balance, the trio strives for their freedom -- and for answers, because what they were condemned with is far more perplexing than they ever imagined.