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

 
Suggestions?

Earth Day is every day - Bring your own bag please!

Earth day is April 22nd, what are your plans? Here at the Friends of the Palo Alto Library we continue to do our part by recycling as much as possible including all plastic bags we receive from those carrying in book donations and by re-using all paper bags brought in for customer purchases. As FOPAL looks ahead we can see a day when we'll have fewer and fewer paper bags to offer our customers. In honor of Earth Day being every day we are asking you to bring your own bag (BYOB) to the sale. Many of our customers already bring their own bags and to you we say thank you very much! Forgot your bag? You can purchase a green FOPAL tote for a mere $2. These durable bags are available in all sales rooms!

The African American Studies special is one of our featured subjects this month. We've received dozens of books from San Jose State spanning several sections including, History, Politics, Anthropology/Sociology, Psychology. Most are featured in the two specials books cases outside the sorting room, and others you'll find in the appropriate sections as well as in the Bargain Room/H2. Nature received several books on mushrooms, and the majority of these are being offered for on-line sale at FOPAL's Amazon sale site. Look for many other tempting titles in Nature this month as described below and enjoy some Eco-therapy this April. The Education & Language section is fully stocked with new inventory with the overflow to be found in the Bargain Room. Also, in the Bargain Room, look for a large selection of 78 RPM Records! The Cooking section is brimming with many nearly new books this month and as a result is occupying a specials bay located at the end of DVDs across from the check-out line.

 
Donations, Donations, Donations

Please bring us your books, CDs, DVDs, games, puzzles, software, and artwork...EXCEPT during our monthly sales.

As we put this newsletter together, we have at least 200 boxes waiting in the sorting room, another 50 behind the Bargain Room, and we expect the sorting room to become even more crowded before the sale. If you can hold off your donations until Monday or Tuesday, we should be able to receive them then.

 
Nature

"How about some creative, low-cost ways to celebrate Earth Day (April 22) and Mother's Day (May 14)? The Nature Section has just what you need! We have flyers on Bay Area-wide outdoor activities and shelves of carefully selected books to add to your fun. For a great gift for Mom, a terrific array of like-new books: The Reindeer People, Fine Morel Tales, Eating Wildly, The Rarest Bird in the World, etc. Hikers, bird-watchers, rock hunters, and armchair naturalists are sure to find the perfect book among our thousand-plus choices. All proceeds support local libraries." -Karen D.

 
European Language

"We recently got a lot of Hebrew books. Most appear to be Israeli fiction or memoirs, but we also have translations of everything from Jude Deveraux to Lampedusa." -Susan Strain

 
Philosophy for April 2017

"We have a broad assortment of new titles for April many of which we have not seen before. These include Philosophy of the Middle Ages, The Short History of Modern Philosophy, Language Proof and Logic, The Metaphysical Club, Antifragile, Looking Away, The Language Instinct, plus two books by Ricoeur and two by Merleau-Ponty. Slightly off topic but an interesting book to read, we have Proust was a Neuroscientist. Don't forget the Bargain Room: there was not enough shelf space in the Main Room for all the books received and there are some excellent books to be found there as well." -Nigel Jones

 
Science

"The Science section is again packed with a lot of great books. We have several copies of Tufte books on the visualization of data. We also have over 30 volumes of the Scientific American Library of Science. FOPAL has received a large donation from the excellent RayChem library and we will be displaying them over the next several months. This month we have several books on statistics and chemistry. If you are a polymer person, this is your sale. As always we have shelves full of popular science books around the corner on the main aisle next to philosophy and throughout the section. There are several rarer books in science biography and science history this month.

Our usual marked shelves (roughly from the main aisle down towards the corner are): popular science, popular math, advanced math, college math, calculus, geometry/algebra, chemistry, biology/genetics, physics, electronics, hobby electronics, geology, geography, mechanical and civil engineering, aeronautics and the space program, cosmology, practical engineering and science, history of science and technology, biography, Einstein, astronomy, cosmology, and general science writing. Additionally, there will be a $1 cart filled with very nice science/technology textbooks. We always suggest that folks look for science books in the Bargain Room. Because we get so many wonderful donations in our section, we never have room for everything in the main book sale room." -Dick Grote and Ed Walker

 
Judaica

Browse the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion, Kabbalah, Jewish history, the Holocaust, memoirs, Israel, Jewish Women, the Jewish American Experience and other related subjects. New this month: The Fourth Commandment; Conversations with the Rebbe; Torah and Dharma; Pioneers in Jewish Medical Ethics; Al Chet: Sins in the Marketplace; GIs Remember; Legacy of Courage; The Texture of Memory; The Lampshade - A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans; A Tale of Love and Darkness - Memoir of Amos Oz. Check the appropriate fiction section if you are interested in literature with a Jewish or Israeli theme. -Charlotte Epstein

 
Movies/Entertainment

"The Movie/Entertainment section is in the north/west corner of the book room. It is always easy to find because the African Queen is hanging overhead. Again this month we have a nice collection of books. For example, we have a shelf full of books from great TV series: Star Trek, X-files, and Dr. Who. We have a few books on Audrey Hepburn. Finally there are a few bios which we don't often see: Hattie McDaniel, Jeanette McDonald, and Bogie. We also have a nice collection of film studies and movie/Hollywood history books. Finally we have a small collection of "lobby books" sold in theatre lobbies in the 50s and 60s for big productions such as Ben Hur.

"In the section you will find (roughly from left to right in the section): modern culture, film writing, craft and movie business, TV, guides, large format, signed books, foreign film, film commentary and theory, Hollywood and film history, director's corner, choice biographies/memoirs, film tie-ins and scripts, and media and media studies." -Dick Grote

 
2017 April Music

"Visit the Music section for books on a wide variety of musical topics in the genres of classical, rock, jazz, American music and dance. New this month - Unbound Sound; Picture the Songs - Lithographs from the Sheet Music of Nineteenth-Century America; Great Composers in Historic Photographs; Preservation Hall; The Cello Suites; Wicked - The Grimmerie; Give My Poor Heart Ease; Dylan's Visions of Sin; Young Men with Unlimited Capital; The Ninth - Beethoven and the World in 1824; Through the Wire - the Words and Lyrics of Kanye West. Also browse our wide selection of sheet music neatly sorted by instruments including violin, piano, trumpet and guitar." -Charlotte Epstein

 
2017 April Humor

"In April we have 7 different versions of the New Yorker cartoons including two copies of the Complete New Yorker Cartoons with DVDs, plus many other cartoon books. We have 10 books by Wodehouse including two anthologies. In the world of Monty Python we have, Monty Python's Bio of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and John Cleese's autobiography, also their esteemed predecessors, The Goons. Making its first appearance we have Wolk's fascinating Reading Comics - How Graphic Novels Work. Also be sure to look for Wallace and Gromit in A Grand Day Out and Ten Thousand Stories in which you open up wonderfully illustrated panels and make up your own story. Make sure to check out the Bargain Room for Humor and look through the large collection of books and cartoons." -Nigel Jones

 
History & Historical Fiction

"This month History received a very large and wonderful donation of books about African-Americans. We are displaying these books in the Special section to your right as you enter the Main room. The books range from humor to history to sociology to literature. It is an excellent collection with rare books from the 60s and 70s up to very current ones. You will find overflow of these books in less fine condition in the Bargain Room as well. In addition to these books we also received more books about Africa than usual that you will find in the History section. Also in History in Historiography you will find a small but interesting selection of books about Edward Gibbon. Don't miss our set section where we are doing spring cleaning and have substantial reductions on sets that were holdovers from last month. We have some terrific new sets including The Cambridge Modern History, 13 volumes for only $25.00.

"In Historical Fiction we are continuing the African-American theme and have grouped our African-American related books in one area in the center section." -Suzanne Little, Irina Cross & Marian Urman

 
Gardening

"Spring is bustin' out all over...and just in time there's a bountiful crop of recently published books on growing vegetables and fruit. This month we have two copies of The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture: Creating an Edible Ecosystem, numerous books on California fruit and vegetable gardening, straw bale gardening, the French intensive method, and growing unusual vegetables, as well as Italian, French, and salad gardening. But as any gardener knows, any patch of cultivated soil also yields weeds, so be sure not to miss Richard Mabey's delightful volume on Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants!" -Ann Justice

 
Sets for 2017 April

"In April, the most recent set to arrive is Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, a set of 10 volumes, 1930, with excellent illustrations, $20. As a series from a set we have 17 volumes of Scott's Waverley Novels, circa 1900, $35. 23 volumes from the same series recently sold for $80. As a part set we have the Works of Daniel Webster, volumes I, III, IV, V, and VI, 1853, $10 each. We have around 20 individual titles from around 1900 to 1835. The condition of these books ranges from terrible to good however they need to be seen to be appreciated. Among them there are some excellent covers, often highly embossed and colored, very fine bindings and wonderful illustrations. Examples are The Anglo Saxon Review, 1900, Punch, 1880 and an old, undated Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. More sets will be found in their subject areas such as History in aisle 11 and Fiction in aisle 15 with even more sets are in the Bargain Room. Don't forget, a set only counts as 1 book when you are buying within the 12 book limit." -Nigel Jones

 
78 Records

"We received a single donation of 27 boxes of records, and in going through them found they were a collection of mostly classical music albums issued between 1930 and 1950. Many on RCA Victor, many on Columbia, some others. Most were complete and with unbroken records. Past shelf photographer Edwin El-Kareh photographed labels from one record in each complete album and we have put them up where bookshelf photos have been in the past, and may yet appear again. Most of these albums are shelved under the classical music LP boxes, some on the floor under the shelves, and some on the bottom shelf under Art books; and albums of popular music have also been shelved on the bottom shelves of Large Format; all in the Bargain Room.

"There are also two "party records" by Dwight Fiske on his private label Fiskana. One didn't have an entry on Discogs so I made one for it. I'll be trying to get these discs into the Novelty Records box in the Bargain Room for the sale.

"Did you know, we also offer records for sale on Discogs?" -Frank McConnell

 
Teen Reviews by Tristan Wang

The Phantom Tollboth by Norton Juster

For Milo, life is dull and time is plentiful. One day, after returning home from school, Milo finds a strange parcel including a note addressing him by name, a curious map of the "Lands Beyond", and a miniature tollbooth which transports him to a magical land where metaphors are literal. He quickly befriends Tock, a noble "watchdog", visits Dictionopolis, and is given the impossible charge of restoring Rhyme and Reason.

Misfit Island by Tina Gibson

An allegorical tale told through the cadence of quatrains. Signa the swan is swept onto an exotic island with a curious divide. On the one side, wild and deranged animals roam freely; on the other side, an assemblage of committed creatures known as the Misfits admits Signa into their society. But when animals start disappearing, Signa must contribute to the effort of identifying the source of the disturbance before it's too late.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The year is 2044. For teenage Wade Watts, the only escape from the crumbling world is the virtual safe haven known as the OASIS. Wade is a "gunter", one of millions of competitive users hunting vainly for OASIS creator John Halliday's "Easter Egg", which will grant the finder his entire fortune. But as Wade unexpectedly stumbles upon the first clue, he will have to escape the murderous competitors beset upon him -- and confront the mire of the real world.