The Bookworm Frolic

I love to read, but with getting my blog started and going to Alaska, I haven’t gone to the library often or read much this summer. That’s going to change now, since I went to the Bookworm Frolic Book Sale tonight.

The Bookworm Frolic is a fundraiser for the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society. The books are collected throughout the year (people donate them) and then the book sale is held outside under a huge tent every August.

Books are arranged on tables and grouped according to genre. Since this is Lancaster Country, there’s an enormous amount of Mennonite-themed books, from theology to bonnet novels. The book sale is staffed by employees and volunteers from the Historical Society, and they appropriately range from mainstream-culture Mennonites to ones who look like older versions of the people on the covers of the bonnet novels.

I love it.

Still, I have a confession. Yesterday, I misread the time when book sale was closing, and I showed up just ten minutes before the sale ended for the day. That wasn’t nearly enough time find any books. I was disappointed, so instead of going straight home, I went to the nearby Goodwill and bought four books there.

So some of the books in the picture are from Goodwill, not from the Bookworm Frolic. But I wouldn’t have gotten those books yesterday without trying to go to the Bookworm Frolic.

Tonight I went early to the Frolic with a tote bag for books. I wore a backpack instead of carrying a purse so my hands would be free.

Soon after arriving, I met Glenda, a friend who works at another Good’s Store location. She told me she had come yesterday morning when the Frolic first opened.

“I was here at 9 o’clock when it started, and by 9:15, the place was so crowded I could barely move! There were Mennonites everywhere.” Glenda laughed as she told me. “But now, the books are all picked out,” she said, looking at the half-empty tables. Only a few dozen people are looking at books this evening, and there’s empty spaces where books had been tightly packed.

But there’s still some left, so I dig in. First, I make a survey of all the sections. I know I want to go through the biography/autobiographies, fiction, then maybe classics and religious.

For few minutes I look at the bonnet novels. My grandma sometimes reads bonnet novels, maybe I can find something for her. I pick up one, titled something about cherry blossoms and flip to the description. It sounds just like all the bonnet novels I read as a girl. Ugh, why did I waste my time like that? Oh, well. Our interests change.

General fiction section next. I pick out a mystery novel that sounds okay.

In the religious section, I find a book by Nabeel Qureshi, Answering Jihad. Nabeel’s earlier book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, about his conversation from Islam to Christianity, is one of my favorite books, so I snatch up Answering Jihad.

There are hundreds of books on Christianity, theology; doctrine, Mennonite or otherwise. It’s probably the biggest section there. I note a copy of Christopher Hitchens’ How Religion Poisons Everything amid the religious books.

“Apparently religion doesn’t poison book sales”, I think. Probably most everyone here has some kind of faith, and we’re spending our evening in pursuit of cheap reads to edify our lives.

As I write this, it occurs to me that both Nabeel Qureshi and Christopher Hitchens are dead. I do a quick google search — Hitchens died in 2011, and Qureshi in 2017.

In the Christian Family section, I spot a faded copy of I Kissed Dating Good-bye by now-turned-unbeliever Josh Harris.

Boy, there’s a lot to to think about at a book sale.

I have the most success in the classics section. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The Town by William Faulkner, and Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë. Yay! I don’t read nearly as many classics as I should. Hope these are good and that I don’t give up during the long descriptions written for pre-Facebook brains.

Eventually it’s time to go. I’ve found five books. I go home, and stack my Frolic finds with the Goodwill finds.

My Goodwill finds include several non-fiction books. Eat More Chicken by S. Truett Cathy is the autobiography of the founder of Chick-Fil-A. Makes me want to eat at Chick-Fil-A again.

The other book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo, is a true story about people living in a Mumbai slum city. It’s a very different book from Eat More Chicken. I actually already read Behind the Beautiful Forevers about two years ago, but it’s a compelling story and I decided it was worth paying $1.50 for.

I also bought a little hardcover book titled “Preparing for Easter”, a collection of readings from C.S. Lewis.

Maybe I’ll do a book report blog post!

Cheers! Susan