Never judge a book by its cover – unless you’re browsing at the Newberry Library book fair.
Snap judgements become necessary while casually browsing through more than 100,000 books. That’s how many paperbacks and hardcovers choked the first floor of Chicago’s Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., for four days last week during the library’s 17th annual book fair. The sheer number of books made reading every title impossible, so browsers slowly worked their way around the tables, waiting to be grabbed by a colorful cover, catchy title, or familiar author.
It was an overwhelming display, with titles organized by genre. Six rooms housed categories of books ranging from archaeology to women’s studies.
There were outdated travel guides, signed first editions, classics and books-on-tape. There were books about religion and books about music. Gardening books filled one table while cookbooks — low- and high-fat — took up a whole wall. Fiction dominated yet another room.
The books are donated by Chicagoans cleaning out their bookshelves and basements, said Vivienne Jones, director of development for the library. Some books, particularly mysteries, turn up at the fair repeatedly, as one reader finishes it and moves on to something else, said volunteer Penelope Bingham .
“It’s really just the ultimate recycling,” Bingham said. “People often return (the books) and we sell them again, and everybody’s happy.”
The book fair is a large-scale operation involving hundreds of volunteers. Throughout the year, volunteers pick up books from donors’ homes, then price and categorize them. During the four-day sale they work registers and help customers.
For the first time last year, the fair raised more than $100,000 in sales, said Dan Crawford , the fair manager. This year’s sales will exceed that figure, he said.
The fair began as a way to build a connection between the library and the surrounding community. From the first fair, the library collected between 20,000 and 25,000 books, Crawford said. That is about the number of books they expect to have left over this year.
After the fair ended on Monday, various non-profit organizations were invited to scour through the leftovers and take whatever books they wanted for free, Jones said. The remaining books will be donated to the Chicago public school system.
Coinciding with the book fair, the library also sponsored a series of debates on Friday and Saturday across the street in Washington Square Park. The debates recalled the days during the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s when orators would come to the park, stand on soapboxes and debate issues.
“They came and they griped,” Jones said.
On Friday, actors playing lawyer Clarence Darrow, author Nelson Algren and activist Lucy Parsons delivered speeches made by those famous Chicagoans. But on Saturday, soapbox speakers expounded on current topics ranging from a car-free Chicago to health care to sanctions against Iraq. The main debate centered on the existence of God and was argued by Rev. Eugene Winkler, the pastor of the Chicago Temple/First United Methodist Church, and Kenan Heise, a former seminarian and retired journalist.
The library hosted the debates before starting the book fair, Jones said. Eventually they began holding the events at the same time.
By the final day of the book fair, the selection had been considerably picked over, so all the remaining books were marked down to half price. Some, like T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” promise to be page-turners. Others, like “The American Catholic Who’s Who,” are hard to believe were ever owned.
With most books priced between $1 and $10, the only problem for bibliophiles was that it was easy to get carried away. As one wife dumped another book into her trailing husband’s arms, he warned her: “You’re the one who’s going to have to carry these home.”
