Thursday, March 31, 2016

Spring Sale Preview: The Really Big Pictures

Our generous community always donates beautiful art and photography books. This year, we received some notable and unusually large format art books.

First, two beautiful issues of "Smyth's Sketches in the Canadas." John Richard Coke Smyth painted the original water colors of Canada when he visited in 1838 as drawing master to the daughters of Governor General, the Earl of Durham. The edition was reproduced in 1968 from an original in the Royal Ontario Museum. It is 14" x 21" and includes 23 full color plates of a variety of Canadian scenes, printed on heavy paper.


 

Second is a collection of Currier & Ives lithographs. We don't often encourage cutting up books for their illustrations, but in this case we'll make an exception  -- because it came to us with a couple pages missing. However, it still has more than 50 full-color plates on a host of scenes of American life from 1834–1895 (the duration of the printing firm's operations). Subjects include the Civil War, railroads, sports, portraits, and historical events.

 



Many more art books will be highlighted in the display case preview, which will be posted soon. Stay tuned!

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Spring Preview: Mementos of a Century of English Monarchy

If British monarchy is your cup of tea, then be sure to take a look at this unusual collection of magazines and souvenir programs of royal events of the mid-20th century, including the coronations of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II and the royal wedding of Elizabeth II to Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh. You'll find them in the Collections section of the sale.
The dish on Queen Elizabeth II's wedding and coronation.
Life magazine article on how dukes and duchesses
prepared for the George VI coronation.
Souvenirs of coronation of King George VI.




Friday, March 25, 2016

Spring Preview: The "Big Batch" Edition


At every book sale, we end up with unusually large selections of certain types of items. Sometimes these collections come from individual donors, and sometimes it seems an unseen, strange and mystical force inspires many people to suddenly decide to donate the same kind of thing. Here are a few highlights:

Beautiful Bibles

At last count, we've packed up at least two full boxes of Bibles in beautiful condition, many with fine leather bindings that feel so good in your hand when you read them. This selection includes Bibles in Spanish as well as English, and a variety of standard and study versions. There are also some unusual versions, such as a fine edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible,  a literal translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, initially translated by St. Jerome, and considered is the oldest full Roman Catholic Bible translation in English. (See What is the Douay-Rheims Bible). 


Early Works by Popular Mystery Writers

Sometimes it's hard to find the early works of popular authors, but not at this sale. This spring in our extensive mass market mysteries section we offer a large selection of early works of popular authors such as Dick Francis, Ellis Peters, Charlotte MacCleod, and Marcia Muller.


Lots of English and Japanese manga
So. Much. Manga.

This spring we find ourselves awash in manga -- in English, in Japanese, for kids, teens and adults. Do you like romance? Intrigue? Action? Fantasy? You'll find something here that's totally your jam.
Inu-Yasha, Volumes 1 thru 16

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Next Book Sale - April 28 through May 1, 2016

It's coming! The ever-popular semi-annual George Mason Friends Book Sale will be:

Boxes of fabulous finds  just waiting for you!
   Thursday, April 28, 3pm – 9 pm
   Friday, April 29, 10 am – 6 pm
   Saturday, April 30, 10 am – 5 pm
   Sunday, May 1, noon – 5 pm

Because we offer as many as 80,000 titles during one sale, we carefully categorize and organize our sales by topic for browsers' convenience. Here are just a few of the categories:
  • Children's titles -- we dedicate an entire separate room to  of children's titles, sorted by subject and reading level
  • Young adult fiction
  • Popular fiction -- Bestsellers, Mystery, Adventure & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Romance
  • Rare, autographed, and other collectible books
  • Art and architecture
  • Sheet music, scores, performing arts,  entertainment
  • History (American, European, world, and military)
    History books waiting to be unpacked.
  • Business
  • Religion and Spirituality
  • Science
  • Self-Help
  • Sports and Games, including video and computer games and RPG manuals
  • Literature
  • Collectibles, including graphic novels, comics, and vintage pulp fiction
  • Books in many languages
  • CDs, videos, audio books 
  • Much, much more!

Stay tuned for more information on some of our special items that will be in the sale!