News from the Library, by E-mail and RSS

If you have ever given the Library your e-mail address, like this newsletter editor did when he signed up for a Palo Alto Library card, you have probably noticed that they are sending you one to a few e-mails per month.

The Library would like you to know that they're celebrating Native American Heritage Month and Diwali. Also that the Library will be closed on Friday, November 10 and Saturday, November 11 for Veterans Day and again on Thursday, November 23 and Friday, November 24 for Thanksgiving.

You can read more about this on their blog. You can subscribe to their blog with an RSS reader.

The Library also has an Events Calendar that is full of stuff to do.

-Frank McConnell

 
FOPAL Closings for November

In observance of Thanksgiving FOPAL will be closed for donations on Thursday November 23rd and Friday November 24th. We will be open for donations on Saturday November 25th.

-Janette Herceg

 
FOPAL Members Get the First Pick at Members' Early Sale

A super big FUN FESTIVE FOPAL Members' Early Sale is scheduled for Saturday, December 9th. Twice a year, FOPAL holds a Members' Early Sale, at which members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library are admitted early to the Main Room sale. Members enjoy a less crowded Main Room and get the first look at FOPAL's wonderful collection of materials!

Saturday, December 9th - At our Members' Early Sale, Life and Sponsor Members (and one spouse or guest) may enter at 9AM and can purchase up to 100 books per membership from 9 AM to 10 AM. Other Members enter at 10AM and are able to purchase 25 books at a time. General admission for all including non-Members begins at 11AM. The usual limit on purchasing 12 books at a time lasts until there is no longer a line waiting to enter. Remember, you may renew your membership, or join FOPAL, on the sale day. Renew, or join now at... www.fopal.org/join.

-Janette Herceg

 
What's special for November '23?

A sizable number of books from a retired professor's donation can be found in our Classic Fiction section and Library of America special. Look for the Library of America, American classic special on your right as you enter the Main Room this November. "The Library of America is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Saul Bellow, Frederick Douglass to Ursula K. Le Guin, including selected writing of several U.S. presidents." -Wikipedia, loa.org

We worked diligently to bring out all the seasonal Fall/Winter Holiday books, DVDs & CDs FOPAL has been collecting these many months. If you are looking for seasonal fun inspiration on how to liven up your holidays, look no further. You are sure to find something you'll be excited to read, listen to, or share with loved ones during this upcoming holiday season. Look for the festive display as you enter the Main Room on the left. You'll find a large selection of the Fall/Winter Holidays books, DVDs & CDs in the Bargain Room/H2 as well.

The Military History World War 1, 11/11 special can be found in the special area to your right as you enter the Main Room. This past month this popular section received a larger-than-normal number of books on a variety of subjects, the WW1 special is being offered this month in recognition of Veterans Day. Look for full shelves again in the Postcards section as a result of a nice donation from a local collector's donations that continues to come through. The special area/bay is full of Postcards for November.

In Memory of David Mezynski- FOPAL would like to thank the Mezynski family for their generous donation. David Mezynski's donation included books on enology and viticulture as well as some wonderful cookbooks. FOPAL is grateful for the opportunity to offer these books at the November sale.

Children's Bargain Room- All books are priced at .50 cents and are half off on sale Sundays! Regardless of the sticker prices on the outside of the books, ALL Children's Bargain Room books are .50 cents until Sunday when they are .25 cents or buy a bag for $5!

-Janette Herceg

 
Classic Literature Special

FOPAL received a large donation from a Professor of English at Stanford, including many volumes from The Library of America. Our Classic Literature special just inside the entrance of the Main Room has 161 slip cased volumes of English and American essays and fiction. The books are in pristine condition and are generally priced at $3 - $5, although there is one shelf of higher value books. There are also 6 volumes in the Philosophy section, 11 volumes in the Poetry section, and 8 volumes in the Drama section. The books have beige, dark blue, green, or dark red bindings and make a very attractive display.

-Classic and Modern Fiction Team

 
World War I Special

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, a treaty signed just hours earlier in a railway carriage just outside Compiegne went into effect to signal the end of World War I. In honor of Armistice Day FOPAL is having a military history special featuring the books from a recent donation. The books are in excellent condition and cover a range of topics, including some very specific battles in the Somme and the Marne.

-Military History Team

 
Popup Music Sale

This month we will continue our series of outdoor Popup Music Sales. Look for a large trove of new discs at bargain and value prices on the tables adjacent to to Main Room entry ramp. Inside the Main Room we have stocked two shelves of classical boxed sets in the Photography Section across from the cashier's tables. Additionally, we will have a table in front of the Bargain Room where you can fill a FOPAL bag with International and Easy Listening LPs for just $5.

-George Chaltas, LP sales manager

 
Home & Crafts

November Home specials include: The Style Sourcebook by Judith Miller and Judith Leiber's The Artful Handbag. Check out The Lucky Shopping Manual: Building and Improving Your Wardrobe Piece by Piece. You'll find unique books on fashion history: What People Wore by Douglas Gorsline and A History of Jewish Costume by Alfred Rubens. Modern fashion showcases Vogue: The Covers. Look for Roaring '20's Fashions: Deco by Susan Langley. Other shelves feature home building and remodeling, as well as home maintenance planners, such as Zero Waste Home. Don't miss A Room of Her Own: Women's Personal Spaces by Chris Casson Madden and multiple titles for painting and color decorating. French country styles include: Provencal Interiors and Pierre Deux's Normandy. Other design titles range from Private New York to San Francisco: A Certain Style.

The Holiday Crafts books have arrived! These shelves provide resources for floral arts and arranging, featuring Christmas Tree, and Malcolm Hillier's Christmas. Don't miss Sunset's Christmas Treasury: Holiday Foods, Gifts, and Decorations. There's also Holiday Crafts: 35 Projects for the Home and for Giving. Here's a special crafts idea: Make Your Own Paper Dragon. You'll also find numerous coloring books of mandalas for adults and children alike. Seasonal fabric arts include: Quick Quilts for the Holidays, Quilt in a Day Christmas Quilts and Crafts, and Cross-Stitch Christmas, plus more. Find your favorite stocking present: Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Sock Book. Or try: The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches. And for that special knitting friend, delight them with The Free-Range Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Look for one or many unique crafts projects to create for the holidays!

Photos can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
Antiques & Collections

November showcases noteworthy jewelry titles including: Great Jewelry of the World by Caroline Childe, Diamonds: A Century of Spectacular Jewels by Penny Proddow and Marion Fasel, The Jewels of the Duchess of Windsor, plus Christie's New York The Magnificent Jewels of Margaret Adderley Kelly. You'll also find An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry by Harold Newman. This month, furniture titles range from Francois Linke 1855-1946: The Belle Epoque of French Furniture to Habegger and Osman's Sourcebook of Modern Furniture. You'll also find a collection of specialty rugs: Anatolian Kilims 1-2, as well as the Turkish Republic's Ministry of State and Culture Turkish Handwoven Carpets: Catalog No: 1-5. Peruse and purchase these titles for your collecting reference.

Photo can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
Medicine and Health

Wonder if you are getting enough sleep? We have three books for you.... The Sleep Revolution, The Promise of Sleep, and Why We Sleep. For inspiration, read The Enchanted Ring-The Untold Story of Penicillin and The Mold in Dr. Florey's coat-The Story of the Penicillin Miracle.

Other highlights include The Gene-An Intimate History, by the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, and the beautiful Atlas of Human Anatomy illustrated by the superb artist Frank Netter... plus check out dozens of texts in every medical specialty waiting for you.

-Pam Parke and Suzanne Cholko

 
Poetry

November rain! November rain!
Fitfully beating the window pane.
This month, among our other picks,
The most obscene of limericks.
We also feature at this time
Those better known for prose than rhyme.

-Mandy MacCalla

 
Puzzles and Games

Puzzlers, November kicks off our annual holiday and winter themed puzzle extravaganza. A full vertical section of these priced-to-sell puzzles on shelves marked off with green tape await you. And for those who gave the bargain puzzles and games section a pass last month, every one of those leftovers below yellow shelves has been again marked down. All are now priced $1-4, most $2-3.

Gamers, few new ones came in this month. If you no longer play some of your old strategy game favorites, please consider donating them so we can have a nice selection again in the near future.

-Vicky Evans

 
Historical Fiction

Those of you coming to the sale--Saturday-Sunday, November 11-12--take a look at the red cart in Historical Fiction: Two great bargain opportunities:
1-Complete set of Winston Graham's Poldark novels for $10
2-Complete set of C.S. Forester's Hornblower novels, including commentary, for $12.

-Peggy McKee

 
Philosophy

For November the set Hypatia: The Journal for Feminist Philosophy, is being offered as individual volumes to enable you to choose topics of interest from the 35 journals. The premier new arrivals are two volumes of Thoreau and four volumes of Emerson both from The Library of America, being very well bound and in slip cases.

Shelf photo at https://fopalbooks.com/philosophy.html.

-Nigel Jones

 
Children's Room

Way ahead of Black Friday, it's your first call for beautiful, giftable holiday books--for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Diwali, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. We've been saving them all year and there are multitudes, all priced to sell. These are the first half of our annual November/December sale; the second tranche will appear in December. Books make great gifts!

You can also stock up on holiday gifts in our Activities section, where you'll find dozens of Kiwi Co. science kits and Doodle craft crates--enough for every rainy day this winter! In our games section we've included some vintage items, such as a large wooden caroms/checkers game board complete with playing pieces. We also have a wealth of puzzles for all ages; those in bags could make great stocking stuffers. For more hands-on gifts, see our two bins of cookbooks, many like new. Add a wooden spoon and you're set!

Non-fiction features a new collection of Star Wars and Lego books, along with lots of 2024 calendars.

In World Languages, look for holiday books in German and French. And it's another packed month for Chinese and Japanese books. On the Chinese shelves you'll find textbooks from various regions including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, along with DVDs, VCDs, CDs, and graphic novels. The Japanese shelves are very well stocked, from picture books to lovely classic chapter books.

Check the School-age Fiction section for early books in the Harry Potter series, in excellent condition. These shorter books are perfect for elementary-age readers to get their feet wet in the series. The Fantasy shelves offer oversized picture books with surprises and secret hiding places: Monsterology, Dragonology, and The Princess Primer. In Classics we have beautiful collectors' editions of Alice in Wonderland (originally $55!), Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, Little House on the Prairie, and Trumpet of the Swan.

As always, the Beginning Readers section offers books at various levels, with fun facts on animals, famous people, history, science, and sports.

In Parenting you'll find books on infants through teens and kids with special needs. Several nice photo albums will allow you to save treasured memories.

Shop our fabulous collection of DVDs with favorites from Disney, Dreamworks, and Harry Potter.

The November sale is Not To Be Missed! You are certain to find something to please each child on your holiday gift list.

--Carolyn Davidson

 
Children's Vintage

It's always hard to know what to highlight in Children's Vintage because all of the books in this section are part of someone's childhood and are therefore special. For example, this month we're featuring a donor's collection of fictional nursing books. You can just see that young reader curled up on their bed, fantasizing about nursing adventures (Surgical Nurse! Wilderness Nurse!) as they're planning their life's course. Maybe that reader was you! But whether you became a nurse or not, I'm betting that A Cap for Mary Ellis or Belinda of the Red Cross will ring some memory bells! And if that doesn't do it for you, the history section runneth over (again!) with some good Landmark history books plus our general fiction section has some nice copies of the classics; The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, and Back of the Northwind, among others, are waiting for you. On the younger children's shelves, we are featuring several books by Pearl Buck, including two copies of The Big Wave, both in dust jackets. And what would November be without a couple of books about Thanksgiving, reminding us to be grateful for our blessings!

Shelf photos available at https://fopalbooks.com/kids.html

-Lisa Heitman

 
European Languages

The European Languages section has lots of vintage books in Polish (including several books by Jan Parandowski) and some Czech (including a book by Karel Capek and one by Jaroslav Seifert), a book for Catalan learners, and some books for learners of Welsh or Arabic (including Arabic Stories for Language Learners).

-Susan Strain

 
Self Help/Personal Growth

I've added Personal Growth to the name of the Self Help section! They're similar, but to me, Personal Growth has a Positivity and Empowerment slant which I like. Growing personally helps us each to create a better life for ourselves and, by extension, others around us. A featured book this month is The Greatest Mindset, 2023, by Lewis Howes, with science backed tools to design the life of your dreams and turn it into reality! I have 11 brand new looking copies for $5 each, a bargain since lowest internet price, used, is $10 plus shipping. Special deal: if you take all 11 copies it's only $50 (one free) - just show this note to the cashier. The subsections are all the same, although I've added a subsection of 'Christian Oriented Personal Growth' books since quite a few came in recently. Some are popular on Amazon so I'm interested to see if they sell. Come by and browse; most books are only $2 and $3. Enjoy,

-Marnie

 
Judaica

Browse the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion and culture including editions of the Torah and other basic texts, Kabbalah, Jewish history, the Holocaust, memoirs, Israel, Jewish Women, the Jewish American Experience and other related subjects.

New this month - Jews and American Comics; Hebrew Book of the Dead; Love in the Promised Land; Front Page Israel: Major Events as Reflected in the Front Pages of the Jerusalem Post; 1949 the First Israelis; Women in the Holocaust; Palestine/Israel: Peace or Apartheid; The Wonders of America: Reinventing Jewish Culture 1880-1950.

Most fiction with Jewish themes will be found in Modern Literature/Classics or Current Fiction. Books entirely in Hebrew are shelved in the European Languages section.

Shelf photos at https://fopalbooks.com/judaica.html.

-Charlotte Epstein, Judaica Section Manager

 
Reference

This month I have slashed prices on several items, all of which I have moved to the Genealogy shelf. The next shelf below Genealogy features an unusual variety of books of quotations and aphorisms, as well as three dictionaries that are intended for English learners. Loads of AP subjects, as well as other Test Preparation manuals are located to the right.

-Bruce Heflinger

 
STEM

We are getting a last-minute donation of earth science books from the USGS. We will be processing them up until sale day and putting them up on the shelves for sale. Whatever is left will be put up next month. Additionally, we have had a strong set of math book and popular science donations. The pop-sci books have overflowed their usual shelves to the top shelves of regular STEM books. A copy of the 1971 art & science combination book Splendor of Iridescence has shown up. As usual, shelf pictures will be available at https://fopalbooks.com/STEM.html

-Edwin El-Kareh

 
Sheet Music

A significant donation of jazz technique books have been donated. Many are from the Jamey Aebersold line of books. All are in excellent condition. As usual, shelf pictures will be available at https://fopalbooks.com/sheetmusic.html

-Edwin El-Kareh

 
Curious Books

The holidays are a busy time, so stop by this month for the Curious Books selections targeting your 2024 upgrade. Unsought advice and detailed instructions are available to help you start your new year with possible positive improvement. Points of view may vary. There is a cute cat book section as well, and much more.

-Donya W.

 
Computers

The different interest areas ebb and flow with donations. This month, Java is fat with books, the Scripting section has an unusual number of Python and Ruby books, and the number of C language books has for once exceeded the number of C++ ones. Plus the complete New Yorker and National Geographic on CDs.

-David Cortesi

 
History

November is Presidents Month! Featured this month is a very nice copy of the 1940 Sangamon edition of Sandberg's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Abraham Lincoln - some volumes contain the author's signature. They'll make a great addition to your Zoom backgrounds! There are several new books about Grant, both Roosevelts - and a controversial analysis of Woodrow Wilson by Sigmund Freud.

History this month also received a new influx of ancient Greek and Roman, British, Indian, and Latin American histories.

-Lin McAllister

 
Donations

We accept donations on Monday through Saturday from 3-5 pm in the Main Room. But we close to donations in the week before the sale so that we can prepare the Main Room for the sale. Which means that we are closed for donations from Sunday November 5 through Sunday November 12. Please hold your donations until Monday November 13.

Please read our donation guidelines before you bring materials to us.

 
Suggestions?

We're always eager to hear your suggestions for ways to improve our book sale. Please email us at suggestions@friendspaloaltolib.org.