The Armidale Central Rotary Book Fair, starting this weekend, gets bigger every year.
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Rotary has almost 70,000 books to sell - 10,000 more than last year, when the sheer volume of volumes forced them to hold two fairs for the first time.
"Even though we had the December sale," organiser and vice-president Ian Garske said, "we didn't know whether we'd be able to replenish the stock, but we have! The community's dropping stuff off all the time."
The fair runs at the Armidale Racecourse from this Saturday, May 11, until Saturday, May 18.
Doors open at 9am, and a couple of hundred people - new Boobooks proprietors Yvonne Langenberg and Debra O'Brien; dealers from Glen Innes, Port Macquarie, and Ulmarra; and simply enthusiastic readers - will be there from the start, eager to seek out literary treasures.
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"In 20 years, we've never gone backward," Mr Garske said. "Whether the December sale will have any effect on that, we don't know, but I suspect not. We've certainly got the books to support that!"
They certainly have: 22 pallets, including a mouth-wateringly huge cooking section (108 boxes). Freight trucks brought across the books on Thursday, and 20-odd Rotarians, their wives and partners spent a busy Sunday putting out the books. They still have plenty in reserve, and will bring out more stock on Monday and Tuesday.
The Rare and Special Books Section is bigger than ever, Rotarian Simon McMillan said. They have a whole table related to New England, from the poems of Judith Wright, photographs, and history, to 1970s vintage Atlases of New England ("dated, but a wonderful resource").
There are Folio Society books from a two-volume set of Robert Graves' Greek myths to Einstein's theory of relativity; car manuals; bird books; old Phantom comics; Time Life sets of maritime history; and the sociology, history, and art of Australian Aboriginals.
The unpackers' choice, though, is the autobiography of a chook (warning: fowl language).
The military history section sees plenty of action. War buffs, president-elect John Jones said, can find Shelby Foote's history of the American Civil War; memoirs of Sandokan, Korea, and Vietnam; Jane on aircraft; and books on Australian divisions, submarines, and the Ottoman navy.
Armidale Central Rotary uses the money raised to benefit the community. Some is spent on drought relief for remote schools; supporting students at O'Connor Catholic College; or a breakfast program and $3000 for a public address system at Newling Public School. They fund a science program at UNE, and a music scholarship at NECOM, in conjunction with the Fine Arts Society in Town. They have also helped Ezidi refugees to resettle in Armidale.
Overseas, the club sponsored a student for six years at the School of St Jude, Tanzania, while a team went to Kokoda, PNG, to help with hospital. They provide girls in South Africa (Project Dignity) and developing countries (Days for Girls) with sanitary kits.