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's big news this month is expansion of open hours at College Terrace and Downtown Libraries. Both will now be open on Tuesdays from 10am to 6pm.

The Library would also like you to know that they're celebrating Latinx & Hispanic Heritage Month until October 15. Also that there are things going on for Halloween.

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

 
What's Special for October!

Donation volume has been steady, and we want to send out a big thank you to all who have donated material for our sales as well as a super big THANK YOU to FOPAL's Donation Pick-up team! Many sections have a backlog and as a result, we expect to have strong sales all through the fall and winter months. Speaking of which, you'll find a small display of Fall Holiday books, cards, and ephemera in the bookcases just outside the sorting/donation room (opposite Travel). We will restock this area with new material through December. Music has a larger than usual selection of books much of it from a recent donation, and you'll find a nice display in the 1st specials bay on your right as you enter the Main Room. Look for an exceptional offering of Vinyl & CDs curated by several section managers this month as well. This collection can be found in the Pop-up Sale Special outside the Main Room. After several plentiful months, the Children's Room and Children's Bargain Room section again has thousands of titles to choose from! A large donation of Postcards came in this month; many made the shelves so do check the usual Postcard section as well as the spectacular selection in the specials bay outside the sorting room. With a local dealer clearing their collection FOPAL is the lucky recipient of hundreds of Postcards priced to sell. Fun fact...a Postcard collector is called a Deltiologist.

These are just a few highlights; the shelves are full!

-Janette Herceg

 
Shelf Photos for October

Poetry

Medicine

Home & Crafts, and Antiques

Judaica

Curious Books

-Edwin El-Kareh

 
Music (Books and Recordings)

A huge wave of music books came in this month, so check out the full shelves of releases in the Monthly Specials Section on the right side of the Main Room door past the Sorting Room entrance. Additionally, peruse the red cart in the Music Section, which is full of a variety of interesting books all about guitars. Our Monthly Music Pop-Up Sale returns with a ton of new releases, many priced at $1. The sale is at the tables under the tent in front of the Main Room entry ramp. There are additional 'Value Priced' LPs on the table next to the Music CD bins in the Main Room.

-George Chaltas

 
Children's Room

Witches and goblins and ghosts--oh my! Check out our display of Halloween books of all kinds: board books, picture books, beginning readers, activity books, and school-age fiction.

Speaking of Beginning Readers, those shelves are packed, with books on animals, famous people, and far-flung places. Sets of readers are ideal for classrooms or families. If you like Elephant and Piggie, we have many of those, too--at great prices!

There's a good selection of books on Parenting, for parents of babies up through teens. We also have a wide variety of children's books about the world's Religions. And the DVDs shelves have overflowed to a nearby table, with many Disney films and classics.

The Giftable Better Hardback Picture Books shelves are even fuller than usual this month, with a large assortment of topics and styles. They make great gifts at incredibly reasonable prices. Hint: December is coming.

The Asian Languages section received a stupendous donation of lovely Japanese picture books and chapter books, and the Chinese shelves are very well stocked.

There's been a switch in the School Age Fiction section: after a large donation of the ever popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, we are featuring these books on the shelves that used to house Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, and Anne of Green Gables. Those books are now in the regular classics section. We have a great selection of Shannon Messenger's Keeper of the Lost Cities series near the back window. On the early chapter books shelves you'll find lots of Captain Underpants, Geronimo Stilton, Junie B. Jones, and Magic Tree House. Look on the popular authors cart for great books by Michael Buckley, Chris Colfer, Cressida Cowell, Stuart Gibbs, and Chris Grabenstein.

We have more games than our shelves can hold--look for them stacked on the Activities island and on tables throughout the room, as well as in the giftables section. (Again, it's not too early to think about holiday giving.) For a different type of gift, choose the slipcased set of Dog Man graphic novels, or buy a couple of single Dog Man titles to add to a collection. We have puzzles for all ages, including many in like-new condition. Our science/math table is crowded with workbooks and classroom games, as well as books of experiments and books of math contest problems. Finally, there are several bags of assorted Legos, priced by the pound and a real deal.

-Carolyn Davidson

 
Poetry

Fresh October brings the pheasant.
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Gather books of rare beauty
On FOPAL's shelves of poetry.
Or try some Tanka, like Haiku,
But in a form quite new to you.

-Mandy MacCalla

 
Medicine

Enter the Main Room and make a sharp turn to the left...and read how the future of medicine is happening now! Ponder The Telomere Effect, by Nobel prize-winner who discovered telomerase and telomeres (structures at the end of chromosomes that protect our DNA). Did you know that you can make changes in your daily habits to actually increase the length of your telomeres and lifespan? Excellent news for everyone!

There is a lot of concern about malaria and climate change, and for good reason. Now read The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator. Malaria, West Nile Virus, Zika, Dengue, and Yellow Fever among others are caused by this pest. (Half of all human deaths throughout history.) Guaranteed to cause a general hatred of mosquitos and even greater concern about climate change!!

Other new highlights include The Age of Genomes: Tales from the Front Lines of Genetic Medicine. Consider Genomics and Personalized Medicine: What Everyone Needs to Know, by Stanford geneticist Michael Snyder, and the beautiful and inspiring photographic biographies in Stanford Neurosurgery: Fusing Neuroscience to New Therapies For Patients.

-Pam Parke

 
Home & Crafts

The October Home section includes beauty and wedding guides, such as Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette, as well as fashion with Beaton In Vogue and When Art Became Fashion. You'll also find costume design plus Fabulous Fifties and '50 & '60s Style. Other shelves feature home building and remodeling, as well as home maintenance planners, such as Storey's Curious Compendium of Practical and Obscure Skills. Look for Interior Design Master Class and concepts for kitchen and bath. Country styles include: Japan Country Living, Come Home to Country, and Country Decorating. Other design titles range from Santa Fe Style and New Arts & Crafts Houses to Hacienda Courtyards.

The Crafts shelves provide books on floral arts and arranging, featuring The Ultimate Wreath Book: Hundreds of Beautiful Wreaths to Make from Natural Materials by Ellen Spector Platt. Enjoy craft designs and art crafts, including Folk Art Gifts: 20 Authentic Hand-Crafted Projects To Make by Simon Hill. Other titles include Ceramics: Mastering the Craft by Richard Zakin and Mandala Stones: 50 Inspirational Designs to Paint by Natasha Alexander. You'll also find numerous coloring books and multiple origami titles such as Origami Omnibus. This month these shelves include an array of fabric arts: Stitch Magic, The Chicks with Sticks Guide to Knitting, Discover Crochet Yarn Art, Needlepoint Designs from American Indian Art, and Crewel Embroidery, to name a few. Find your favorite quilting titles: The American Quilt, Victorian Quilt and Block Design, plus Christmas Quilts & Crafts, among others. Look for one or many unique crafts projects to create for the gift-giving season!

Photos can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
Antiques & Collections

Special books for October include: Antiques Roadshow Primer: The Introductory Guide to Antiques and Collectibles from the Most-Watched Series on PBS by Carol Prisant, plus Miller's Antiques Encyclopedia. You'll also find the wonderful volume, Hearst: the Collector by Mary L. Levkoff. This month, train buffs can enjoy Lionel: A Collector's Guide and History to Lionel Trains, Volumes I-VI at a reduced price. Other titles feature: rugs and furniture, jewelry and gems, plus stamps and coins for your collecting reference.

Photo can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
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 - Warhol's Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered; Comic Book Siddur: For Shabbat Morning Services; Leaving South Dakota: A Memoir of a Jewish Feminist Academic; Jewtopia: The Chosen Book for the Chosen People; Torah in Motion: Creating Dance Midrash; Sara Berman's Closet; Letters to Auntie Fori: the 5,000-year history of the Jewish people and their faith; To Paint Her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Era; Jewish Roots in Poland: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories.

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.

-Charlotte Epstein, Judaica Section Manager

 
STEM

This month has been light in quantity but not in quality. Almost all books are less than half of the lowest internet price. Books from previous months sales are repriced lower so that you will find them irresistible. Math is overflowing as usual, even if other subjects are thin. Plenty books were sent to the bargain room, so shop there first (it opens earlier). See what books are available at https://fopalbooks.com/STEM.html. Need more shelf space at home for the new books you will acquire? Consider donating what you no longer need from your library to FOPAL. I certainly will appreciate your generosity and I will do my best to find them a good home.

-Edwin El-Kareh

 
Sheet Music

This month has been very good. Someone who really cares about music and keeping their music books neat and clean gave us a large donation of classical and jazz titles. We also get the usual selection of well loved and affectionately annotated titles, most of which you will find bulging the shelves in the bargain room. See what is available at https://fopalbooks.com/sheetmusic.html.

-Edwin El-Kareh

 
Curious Books

Curious Books is having a "Bottom Shelf Special" sale this October. We have a vintage stamp album with stamps, and some special boxed offerings. We offer as well this month a highly varied selection of personal and group blank journals and records books. As usual, we have a varied and entertaining selection of off-beat books for your reading entertainment.

-Donya W.

 
Gardening

This month the "Waterwise/CA/Dry" shelf offers a bumper crop of books on replacing your personal landscape with attractive, drought-tolerant plants, e.g. The Drought-Defying California Garden, Lawn Gone!, and Hellstrip Gardening (how to tackle that "special" planting strip between sidewalk and curb), two copies of that must-have, lavishly illustrated reference Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates, plus five books on succulents, and five books on ornamental grasses. For inspiration on creating an effective design on your average city lot, the "Garden Design" shelf offers Outside the Not So Big House, Inside Out, Gaining Ground, Creating Small Gardens, and Ornament in the Small Garden. And for pure eye-candy, gift-quality books, don'’'t miss The Rockefeller Family Gardens and Gardens in France.

-Ann Justice

 
Art

Art section will have a special sale for Japanese Prints books. Here is an Instagram reel for a glimpse of what's on sale for October.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyRcoazSPKA/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyRb3Xay5kL/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyRWqY9vBIl/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

-Fiona W.

 
Puzzles and Games

This month there will be a huge clearance sale on puzzles--50 are priced at $2-4. They are all the puzzles under the yellow taped shelves. And the regular shelves are packed, too.

In games, there are also big bargains under the yellow tape. In addition, if you missed the big WarHammer sale last month, our generous donor provided us another 30 books this month.

-Vicky Evans

 
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 October 8 through Sunday October 15. Please hold your donations until Monday October 16.

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.