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 since the start of the pandemic.

The Library would like you to know about National Library Week, which is April 23-29, also that this is National Poetry Month, also about Palo Alto Reads which is going on this month, and probably some other things because they post more often to their blog than we send out this newsletter. You can subscribe to their blog with an RSS reader.

And if like yr hmbl newsletter editor you have not been paying attention and are wondering what is open and how much the Library has a Current Library Services page.

 
What's Special for April

Earth Day is April 22nd, what do you have planned? Here at the Friends of the Palo Alto Library, we recycle as much as possible, including all plastic bags we receive from those carrying in book donations, and by reusing all paper bags brought in. In honor of Earth Day being every day, we request you to bring your bag to the sale. Many of our customers already bring their bags, and to you, we say thank you very much! Forgot your bag? You can purchase a green FOPAL tote for a mere $3. These durable bags are available in all sales rooms! Or, look for paper bags and flattened banker boxes complementary this month as FOPAL continues to share the wealth through freecycling, recycling, reusing, and repurposing.

The Medicine special is one of our monthly featured subjects. We've received dozens of books from Stanford University Library spanning several subsections; health policies, ethics, inequality in Medicine, and health management. All are featured in the two special bookcases outside the sorting room. The Cooking section for April offers shelves filled with donations that came in earlier this month. Look for many tempting titles in Nature and enjoy some Eco-therapy this spring. The Biographies & Memoirs section is re-stocked with new inventory, the overflow to be found in the Bargain Room. Book Sets were one of our featured specials last month. We've added more Sets for our April Sale. Most are featured in the case outside the sorting room, others you'll see in the Sets section or the appropriate sections. A shout out to FOPAL new student assistant section manager Angeline W.! Thank you for all your hard work filling in for several section managers, good job, Angeline!

 
Donations, Donations, Donations!

Please bring us your books, audiobooks, DVDs, games, puzzles, and software...EXCEPT for the second week of each month and during our monthly sales. If you can hold off your donations until Tuesday, or Wednesday next week we should be able to receive them with little waiting time on your part. We are accepting donations Monday 4/10, if you need to drop off books then, please be patient as we're seeing a huge number of donors the Monday after each sale. FYI- FOPAL processes approximately 40,000 books per month! Sadly we're only able to sell 1/3 of this, due to poor condition. General Guideline: if you would not give it to a friend, please don’t give it to the Friends! For more information on donations...check out... https://www.fopal.org/donate

 
Free Box Giveaway

Free flat banker boxes, ideal for storage and moving. Available during the sale at the Main Room.

-Jenny Munro, President

 
Shelf pictures

At time of publication fopalbooks.com is being loaded with April's pictures.

 
Medicine

We have a plethora of quality Anatomy, Pharmacology, Cardiology and Internal Medicine texts this month.

Search for a gem in the fascinating History of Medicine section with volumes dating back to the 1800s, and lavish Seven Hundred Years of Medicine: the Bologna Medical School.

To brush up on rescue skills or prepare for exotic travel plans, Emergency Care in the Streets will prepare you for any emergency!

-Pamela Parke

 
Health

If you have an interest in medical history, one standout is Dunant's Dream by Caroline Moorehead. This recounts the origin of the Red Cross Society, when in 1859, Swiss citizen Henri Dunant, arrived in Italy to discover that his vacation spot was close to a battlefield, recently vacated by the Austrian and French armies. The torn landscape was littered with the dead and dying, and Dunant was appalled. There was no one to help them. Another intriguing read is In Search of Memory by Eric Kandel (a Nobel prize winner of 2000), who researched learning and memory. Health is always full of diet books for losing those extra pounds. Have you ever wondered if mushrooms have any medicinal value? The answer can be found on our shelves.

-Suzanne Cholko

 
Children's Room

April is National Poetry Month, and we are featuring poetry collections for all ages on the display rack just inside the door. Take one home and discover why poetry is celebrated for an entire month. Our Non-fiction section is having an overstock sale, with bargains such as Encyclopedia of Presidents, Children's Science Library, What Your [___] Grader Needs to Know, Dangerous Book for Boys, Chelsea Clinton's It's Your World, the If You Lived... series, and Myth, Magic, and Mythology. The Parenting section features books to help you help your child become a lifelong reader. Check out the great variety of Early Readers at every level. The DVDs shelves are full, including lots of Harry Potter movies. In the Activities section the games shelves are quite full, as are the graphic novels shelves, and we have a collectible boxed "Glinda" Barbie doll, several Playmobil sets, and a Snap Circuits kit. The School-age Fiction section features many pristine hard-cover editions of popular classics like The Secret Garden, Old Yeller, Watership Down, and Harriet the Spy. There's also a like-new collection of 21 of Enid Blyton's books. We have a read-aloud version of Little House on the Prairie, beautifully illustrated. The early chapter books shelves are overflowing, and we have new hardback editions of Rick Riordan's popular series Heroes of Olympus and Kane Chronicles. In Asian Languages, the Simplified Chinese section is well stocked this month, with sets of popular picture books and readers. There are also some nice Chinese DK reference books and textbooks, for supplementing Chinese instruction, and activity books and bilingual (English/Chinese) books and workbooks for young readers. Finally, as always, look on our Giftables shelves for beautiful like-new picture books.

-Carolyn Davidson

 
Vintage Children's

Spring has sprung! At least in the Vintage Children's section at FOPAL. Bunny books and Easter tales (tails?) are the featured selection in the younger children's section. Also, a discounted 8-volume set of Book Tales (in the anthology section) features classic stories for the younger set. In addition to the usual good selection, there are also a couple of multi-volume options aimed at older kids. The Biggles books written by "Captain" WE Johns, RAF pilot and all-around adventurer, were written in the 1930s about his war exploits. We were lucky enough to get about 15 or so paperbacks published by Knight. We also have about 10 volumes of Marryat's Works. Frederick Marryat was a British naval officer in the early 1800s and an early pioneer of nautical fiction. Come early to the sale and buy the complete matching set! And as always, check out other vintage books listed for sale in our eBay store at <https://www.ebay.com/usr/friendsofthepaloaltolibrary>. Also, just as a reminder, if you're kicking yourself for not buying that special book at last month's sale, it may still be available this month at half the price. Books in the vintage children's section are originally priced at half the lowest online retail price and then reduced by 50% more for the next month (and 50% more for the month after that!) You can definitely pick up some real bargains!

-Lisa Heitman

 
Poetry

April is the cruelest month, or so the poet writes,
But at the FOPAL booksale, you'll find many Spring delights:
Volumes signed and doodled on by poet Robert Bly,
Along with many other books that may well catch your eye.

-Mandy MacCalla

 
Education & Language

Two special sets are available in April:

International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (1992), a 4-volume set at $12; and Handbook of Discourse Analysis (1985), a 4-volume set at $10. Also in this section: theories of language and linguistics; writing, grammar and syntax; K-12 and post-secondary education; and teaching and education administration.

See photo at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
Home & Crafts

For April, the Home section showcases fashion and beauty, featuring a multitude of wedding guides, plus accessories and skin care. You'll also find fashion designers from Donna Karan and Yves Saint Laurent, to Balenciaga and Oscar de la Renta. There's also home organizing and more spring cleaning tips. Other shelves include home decorating styles and interior design concepts, especially the Taschen international series on country houses. Building and remodeling titles abound at modest prices.

This month the Crafts shelves highlight reduced-priced items: floral arts; origami, beadwork, scrapbooking, and wooden toymaking; needlepoint, quilting, sewing, and knitting; plus an assortment of woodworking titles.

Photos can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

 
Antiques & Collections

The Art of Wine, Japanese Dolls, Timeless Toys; Glass, World Furniture, Iron, and Wedgwood are among the offerings in Antiques & Collections this April.

Don't miss an overflow of Antiques & Collections, as well as several Home & Crafts titles on a Mixed Red Cart. This month features value-pricing for the Time/Life Encyclopedia of Collectibles series, plus home improvement titles, home repair advice, and maintenance guides.

Photos can be found at www.fopalbooks.com.

-Virginia Perry

 
European Languages

We have some books in Spanish from the Sandinista Revolution.

-Susan Strain

 
Puzzles

Empty spaces in Puzzles this month reflects a dire need for donations. We have had a great run post-Covid heights of many many quality puzzles, but in the last two months we have had many fewer donatons. So, a plea particularly to our regular Saturday morning puzzle purchasers -- will you consider donating back some of those you purchased? To make this easy for you, I will be available to take them from you Saturday 10:30-1:30. Before 11, I will be at the shed outside the back door and from 11-1:30 cashiering near the back door. And, as always, puzzles are welcome during regular FOPAL donation times.

-Vicky Evans

 
Photography

This month's Photography Red Cart is loaded with beautifully printed large-format books at discount prices; perfect additions for your coffee table!

-George Chaltas

 
Mysteries & Thrillers

This month we have 63 books all written by Robert B. Parker. 57 hardbacks for only $2.00 each and 6 paperbacks for only $1.00!

-Cathy Swan

 
Art

Special art books for April: French Artbooks. View the books for special sale here on Instagram.

-Fiona Wang

 
Curious Books

As Life pokes through April's muddy earth, between the fallen branches and the broken shingles, so too does Life make itself visible in this month's display of Curious Books.

Our volumes offer gracious and original thoughts to live by, ways to organize these thoughts into living well, feline philosophies for extra charm, and yet more books you need to live the examined and enjoyable life.

-Donya W.

 
Science Fiction and Fantasy

After a bit of a dry spell for donations, the Science Fiction and Fantasy shelves are full again. In books "About" there's the pretty John Clute Science Fiction: the Illustrated Encyclopedia. In Horror, a fat H. P. Lovecraft omnibus with all the fiction he ever published. A half dozen books with particularly attractive bindings are in the main SF/F section.

-Rich McAllister

 
Graphic Novels and Comics

In Graphic Novels and Comics, another tranche of '80s comic magazines, mostly Marvel, mostly bagged and boarded, all $1. Not so many long runs this time, be prepared to flip through the file boxes.

-Rich McAllister

 
History

This month History is featuring the glories that were ancient Greece and Rome: we have a large donation of books ranging from popular histories to scholarly works. There is a sizeable selection of new donations in Russian and Soviet history, including some general histories. Take some time to check out the Asia and Regional Politics sections: there are some general histories of the regions along with the academic volumes. We also have some older - i.e., 1900-1930 - works in fair to very good condition, including a very nice copy of Our Nation: The Marvel of Nations by Seventh Day Adventist scholar Uriah Smith (3rd edition).

-Lin McAllister

 
Donations

We have made it past Drop-off Donations 3.0 and have returned to accepting donations without the need to make an appointment.

HOWEVER....

We are closed for donations from Sunday April 2 through Sunday April 9 to prepare the Main Room for this weekend's sale. Please hold your donations until Monday April 10.

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

All that said, our normal hours for drop-off donations are Monday through Saturday, 3pm-5pm. (But not the week before the sale.)

 
Suggestions?

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