‘You can never have too many books’
There’s half an hour left before the doors shut and a few book-lovers are making the most of the sale up to the last moment.
They’re not short on options at Hamilton’s NZ Red Cross 20th Annual Book Fair, where you can find everything from Rupert Bear to a book called Rembrandt to Renoir.
Volunteers think about 50,000 books are on site, and it took about two days for community service people to bring them all to Te Rapa Racecourse.
They form a human chain to get them up the stairs, long-term volunteer sorter Jenny Beckett said.
In total, the set-up takes about two weeks, then the event runs Friday to Sunday.
But there has been a steady stream of bargain hunters, and a few are still searching as closing time approaches.
There’s a man running his finger along a row of book spines and a four-year-old in a Star Wars top clutching picture books.
The youngster is Flynn Archibald, who has come along with mum Nicole Rutter.
‘‘He’s starting school in October so we’re just kind of looking at educational type [books], ABCs, that type of books,’’ Rutter said.
‘‘You can never have too many books.’’
On the other side of the room, a man looking intently at all the offerings says he only has 10 minutes to scope out the upstairs offerings.
He doesn’t want to give his name, but says he’s already picked up a box full of books from downstairs.
They’re cheap, he says, and he has some shelf space to fill – that’s why he comes along.
Beckett is a volunteer book sorter, and has racked up 20 years helping out.
Just as you can’t judge a book by its cover, it can be tricky to guess what people are interested in, she said.
Sometimes a book purchaser comes up and she thinks, ‘‘I wouldn’t think they would have been interested in that,’’ but they are. Others arrive with a clear plan. ‘‘They’re looking for a particular author.
‘‘They have got so many of their books and they look for the next one in the series,’’ she said.
Often they want something that’s now out of print, so secondhand book sales are their only chance to get it.
She loves watching the kids, too.
‘‘Their eyes are wide open when they come in. They’re so excited … Some of them save their pocket money.’’
Beckett has been volunteering from the start – one of the founders knew she was a keen reader and asked her to lend a hand.
‘‘There’s a group of us who sort [the books], every Monday, all through the year,’’ she says.
At the sale, books by Nora Roberts, Lee Child, and Maeve Binchy always tend to go down well with the punters.
Each year there’s a collector’s corner and this year it included Kiwi classic Footrot Flats, and a National Encyclopaedia, with a brown cover with gold detailing.
In 2012, a book in French that was going to be sold for $1 turned out to be a treasure.
A bargain hunter spotted the midwifery book, printed in 1719, and suggested to Red Cross volunteers that it shouldn’t be in the bargain room.
It was sold to the National Library of New Zealand for $1500.
After the Red Cross sale, some of the kids books will go to low decile schools, others to refugee families or to Women’s Refuge.
Some will be stored, to come out again in 2017.
That’s when the book sale will turn 21, so the volunteers will be working to make a special event, Beckett said.
Before the 2016 event, organisers said they hoped to raise $60,000 from the sale.