Finding Literary Treasures Book Lovers Descend On Annual Sale, Raffle
Even scuffed, musty and dog-eared, this is Georgie Oxford’s treasure.
It’s the sort of thing she searches for religiously, a seed planted by her father, who shared this mission: Find Alfred Hitchcock, from children’s mysteries to adult thrillers.
And Oxford scored Sunday at the 47th annual Used Book Sale and Raffle, where bibliophiles conduct archeological missions for their favorites and the American Association of University Women raises money for scholarships.
“I found one,” Oxford exclaimed, pulling a yellow-edged paperback with a dark blue cover out of a sea of cardboard boxes. “It’s rare to find one in good condition.”
Hitchcock stares out from the cover beside the words, “A Brief Darkness: 28 Short Stories of Mystery and Murder.” This is one of only five Hitchcock children’s books that Oxford doesn’t have in her collection.
“I’ve read them all three or four times,” said Oxford, a cook at the Three Mile Cafe in Bonners Ferry. She reels off a brief taste of her collection - “The Green Ghost,” “Mystery of the Moaning Cave,” “The Talking Skeleton,” “The Whispering Mummy.”
Oxford’s father started all this by bringing home Hitchcock books when she was 4 years old. He liked the adult books and liked the messages in the children’s Hitchcocks.
“There are good points to the stories,” Oxford said. “They teach you different things.”
Hitchcock is her passion, but Oxford was happy to stumble on the book fair for a variety of titles. “I like all books - mysteries, nonfiction, anything but romance,” Oxford explained.
Carolyn Cozzetto’s taste is somewhat different, more geared toward history, adventure and travel. But she is easily more driven to these used book sales.
Even though she helps out at a local used bookstore, her vacations always involve going to bookstores.
“I live through my reading,” Cozzetto said. “I think it takes you someplace you can’t always visit.”
The book clutched in her hand spells adventure in the Australian outback, traveling on the prose of Robyn Davidson in “Tracks.”
The tables of books are the collected bounty of members of the AAUW or friends of members, said JoAnn Nelson. The money provides scholarships for area residents to attend North Idaho College.
People pay by the inch, instead of by the book. By Sunday, hardbacks had dropped from $1 an inch to a bargain 50 cents an inch.
Westerns go the fastest, Nelson said. Children’s books are always hot.
And hopefully, Hitchcock is lurking somewhere in the stacks.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo