Books find loving homes at Saturday’s BCL Friends Big Spring Book Sale

Books found loving homes at Saturday’s Friends of Blanchard Community Library’s Big Spring Book Sale, where thousands of books and other assorted mind stimuli is sure to keep buyers busy for months to come.

Mary Shore of Santa Paula was on a quest to locate “The Canterbury Tales” for some light and informative reading before a trip to England, while Denise Thomas was doing her traveling in the section of books devoted to the topic. “I guess I’m what you’d call an armchair traveler,” the Ventura resident said with a laugh.

Friends President Pat Alderson said the event didn’t draw its usual army of set-up helpers, but “The people we had were great, a lot of women” hauling books to carefully marked tables for easy to read spine-up placement. “We got it all out,” including the carefully selected Silent Auction items being overseen by Friend Carol Hardison, “a wonderful saleswoman,” said Alderson.

John Nichols, owner of John Nichols Gallery, said he’d devoured a previous book sale-bought biography of the late singer Sam Cooke, and “Now I have to find one about Ray Charles!”

“Actually,” rather sheepishly Mitch Stone of Santa Paula admitted, “I’m here looking for people, not books,” but he showed interest in Nichols’ find of “Recipes for Essential Mixed Drinks.” Displaying the 2 1/2-inch by just under 5-inch booklet, someone, joked Nichols, “asked if I need a bag for that!”

“Oops, there’s that purple one!” 6-year-old Amber Grace Wineman of Newbury Park - a book sale perennial - quipped about her Teletubbies pop up book, while Lucy Solano, also 6 of Santa Paula, said she preferred books about Disney “Princesses!”

“My hobby is finding my favorite mystery writers” and reading them before donating them back to the library, said Santa Paulan Judy Triem.

Gem Ross, a 2-year-old Ventura resident, “has her own monster library,” said her grandfather Dave Ross of Port Hueneme. “She probably has a couple of hundred books,” and Ross added Gem had found a gem-like copy of “101 Dalmatians” to add to her collection.