Books are wonderful things – but, as any reader knows, where do you store them?
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Armidale Central Rotary Club is flooded with fiction; awash with art and Australiana; going under with gardening; and constricted with cooking and children’s books.
To deal with the sheer volume of volumes, they’ll hold a second book fair this year: a two-day sale at the race course on December 1 and 2.
“It’s been forced on us by the kindness of the Armidale people,” organiser Ian Garske said.
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“The donations are flooding in; we can’t fit all the books in our own shed – and we can't fit them in the race course for our May sale, either!”
This book fair will be a quarter the size of the earlier event, with 12 to 15,000 boxes for sale (600 books).
Five hundred boxes were left over after the May sale; and more have come in over the last six months. Rotary volunteers receive 500 to 1000 books a week.
“They quieten down in winter,” Mr Garske said, “but the moment spring or summer arrives, people start to clean out.
“You get a consistent lot of deceased estates; the family arrive from Melbourne to clean out Mum’s house, and they need somewhere to donate the books. We often get a utility load out of one house!”
Readers will find every category except the rare books. Collectors must wait until May to obtain first edition Ian Flemings, or the complete Oxford English Dictionary, microprinted in two volumes.
The book fair is a good opportunity for Christmas shopping.
“There are a lot of beautiful books that are like brand new,” Mr Garske said. “People trying to pick up books for gifts, or for kids, can do it on the cheap.”
The May bookfair is Rotary Central’s biggest fundraiser; this year, they raised $65,000, and sold 50,000 books.
Rotary Central hopes this event will raise $10 to $15,000.
“The enthusiasm of the Armidale booklovers will still be about,” Mr Garske said.
Some of the money will go towards the Yazidi families in town. Rotary has formed an association with the refugees, and will do up some second-hand bikes and buy them some gardening tools.
“They're fairly industrious in getting gardens going,” Mr Garske said. Many have turned their backyards into vegetable patches.
About 30 came to a Rotary member’s place out of town for a barbecue this weekend.
“They brought along a lot of vegetables that they've grown already, which we have not seen before – greens that we didn’t know the names of!” Mr Garske said.