Library News

The Library's big news this month is that Children's Library is now (and from Monday July 8) open six days a week, including Mondays and Fridays from 10am to 6pm. You can read more about that here.

The Summer Reading for a Cause program is ongoing until August 1. You can get prizes for having read as few as five books. Read all about it!

You can find out about things like this from the Palo Alto City Library Blogs page. Or you can subscribe to them with an RSS reader.

You can also find out about all this stuff and more from an infrequent e-mail from the Library. There's a signup form.

-Frank McConnell

 
What's special for July

July is FOPAL's busy donation time, signaling that school is out and summer is here! FOPAL is offering plenty of summer-time reads, games, puzzles, music, movies, and more! From the Art section, look for a special collection of art books donated from the shuttered Stanford Cantor Museum gift shop along with all the other Art books and some framed art, plus prints that were donated this month! The Children's Bargain Room/H2 sections have been completely restocked with a wide variety of items from a huge donation complements the Palo Alto Unified School District via the bountiful Children's Room. Shout out to YSC volunteers who helped FOPAL's Children's Bargain Room/H2 section manger Tyler V! Tyler and her YCS team pushed through over 100 boxes of books this month as well as helping cleaning out the H2 courtyard, cleaning the outside of H2 and posting the new Bargain Room price lists!! Also worth a shout is the Children's Room Tuesday Crew...given there's enough books to fill most sections twice, graphic novels, kids' non-fiction & fiction, toys, puzzles and games to name a handful of the overflowing sections!!!

Look for FULL sections/shelves of Puzzles & Games both the Main Room and the Bargain Room. The equally nice selection in the Bargain Room is a reflection of the overflow from the Main Room. The Postcards section has more than enough postal cards to fill its shelves and welcomes more postcard donations. For all our deltiologists (Someone who collects and studies postcards.) Come check out this month's offerings curated for you by FOPAL's own deltiologist, Postcard section manager/NASA retiree Rommel S.

For FOPAL's Pop-up Music customers the Pop-up Music sale is back for July! Enjoy this opportunity to shop the latest inventory this month. FOPAL's Pop-up Music Sale is Saturday 7/13, 10am-3pm (outside the Main Room). This super Vinyl Pop-Up sale features 1000+ items with an emphasis on 70s & 80s Music.

-Janette Herceg

 
Art

We have a nice selection of books on Islamic art this month. You can find them near the architecture bookcase. And we have a selection of high value art books at greatly reduced prices arranged on a shelf above the monographs.

-Melinda

 
Children's Room

We may be sweltering in summer's heat, but autumn and the new school year will be here soon enough. Look in our Non-fiction section for teacher specials and home-schooling materials: dictionaries, thesauruses, and many other reference books, all at bargain prices. You'll also find lots of engaging pop-up books on nature, science, art, etc.

School-age Fiction boasts some wonderful boxed collections, many like new. In Classics, we have Winnie the Pooh, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and two boxed sets of the Narnia books. On the Early Chapter Books shelves you'll find the Boxcar Children (still in shrink wrap), Amelia Bedelia, Junie B Jones, and Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson. There's a starter collection of hardback Hardy Boys books among the Series of Interest to Boys (and girls too, I am sure). On the Fantasy shelves look for Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles, Brandon Mull's Beyonders, and a pristine hardback collection of the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. Don't miss the Award Winning Authors section, with many teacher favorites including Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, Lois Lowry, Gary Paulsen, and Philip Pullman.

As always, the Beginning Readers shelves offer appealing science and history books and sets of books for early readers, perfect for families or classroom libraries. You'll find lots of choices in our Parenting section for new parents and parents of teens. And among the DVDs is a set that teaches sign language!

Our Activity section includes a microscope, as well as several PlayMobil kits and Kiwi crates. The games shelves are stacked with offerings for the entire family. The graphic novels bookcases are packed with books for readers at all levels. Finally, this month we received several donations of mathematics books, and we're offering the first of those textbooks and workbooks this month--you'll find everything from Pre-K to Pre-Calculus!

If you're looking for gift-quality picture books, you'll be pleased with this month's selection, all at very reasonable prices.

Come and browse--we are air-conditioned!

-Carolyn Davidson

 
Tips for finding the perfect book for your child

Hello parents and guardians! I would like to share some handy dandy tips on finding the perfect book for your child to read over summer break! First of all, keep the age of your child in mind: how advanced they are at comprehending books. This is important while finding their special Goldilocks books-not too hard; just the right difficulty! An easy way to find their reading level is to read the first few pages of a book recommended for your child's age. If your child is very confused, it's too hard. If they get most of it, then it's just right. If they complain it's too easy, well, then it's just too easy. Next, genre; knowing what genres your kid enjoys will make sure they won't get bored. To find out what types of stories they like is really easy: just ask! If they don't know, then let them sample some books of different genres. Finally, the most important part: read my book reviews in the monthly FOPAL newsletter!

Good luck!

-Emma Chen

 
Puzzles and Games

Strategy gamers, this is THE month for you. We have over 4 dozen new games. 20 are currently listed on eBay for >$80, ours $30-40. In addition, there are another 6 for $15-20 also at way less than half eBay's price.

In puzzles, the shelves are again full with lots of new titles.

-Vicky Evans

 
Home & Crafts

The July Home shelves include designer styles such as The Fashion Book, a Phaidon collection. You'll also find The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-57. There are several costume design resources: Costume Craftwork on a Budget, among others. We also showcase shoes and hats: Salvatore Ferragamo: The Art of the Shoe 1898-1960 and Ruth Garland-Dewson's Hats for Every Head. Home decorating references feature Maker Spaces: Creative Interiors from the Homes and Studios of Inspiring Makers and Designers by Emily Quinton. Don't miss: Global Style: Exotic Elements in Contemporary Interiors. There's also Jay Jeffers' Collected Cool: The Art of Bold, Stylish Interiors. Home maintenance titles range from: A Place for Everything: Organizing the Stuff of Life, to a favorite for new homeowners, Home Maintenance for Dummies.

There are several origami titles this July on our Crafts shelves: Origami Animals by Hector Rojas; Practical Origami: Folding Your Way to Everyday Accessories; and The Complete Origami Course by Paul Jackson. Try your hand at coloring with Color Me Fearless by Lacy Mucklow and other coloring titles to spark your inner spirit. Don't miss Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People by Amy Sedaris. There's a craft technique reference for every hobbyist, from drawing and painting, to glass and beading, plus wire and wood. To get started, try Debbie Travis' Weekend Projects. This month we also carry ceramics: How to Make Pottery and Ceramic Sculpture, The Complete Potter's Companion, and The Potter's Wheel. In Fabric Arts there are many resources for sewing, knitting, crocheting, and embroidering. Look for The Encyclopedia of Needlecrafts and a myriad of quilting titles including: America's Glorious Quilts, Quilts: A Living Tradition, and The Quilter's Resource Book.

Shelf photos can be found at https://fopalbooks.com/crafts.html.

-Virginia Perry

 
Antiques & Collections

July Antiques offer unique titles such as The Eccentric Teapot by Garth Clark and The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste by Jane and Michael Stern, a book of cultural extremes. You'll notice a beautifully designed book, The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes. Peruse through The History of Beads, as well as porcelain, lustreware, enamelware, and silver guides. If you are new to collecting, we have a 20-volume series, Discovering Antiques. You'll find gem and jewelry titles, including The Great Book of Jewels by Heiniger. Browse our rug and furniture resources, as well as coins, stamps, auction catalogs, and other antique titles to choose from for your collecting reference.

Shelf photo can be found at https://fopalbooks.com/crafts.html.

-Virginia Perry

 
The West

The West is a very eclectic section, covering all the states west of the Mississippi. Of local interest we have books on Palo Alto/Stanford including several small pamphlets written by the Palo Alto Historical Association; San Francisco/Bay Area; the peninsula down to Monterey; and the rest of California. There are books on states and areas outside of California including early cross country travel, mining and ranching activities. We also have a collection of 30 pristine Louis L'Amour western novels in imitation leather bindings at $3 to $4 dollars each.

-Ed Walker

 
Poetry

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gillyflowers.
And Christmas in July is here
With poems to love throughout the year.
Classics dominate the shelves,
Lots more fun than Santa's elves.
So pick yourself a book or so,
Or gifts for others that you know.

https://fopalbooks.com/poetry.html

-Mandy MacCalla

 
Historical Fiction

Check out Historical Fiction at the July Sale: I have a new shelf of "Jane Austen Spin Offs"--romantic imaginings of the Darcy marriage and what happened to the other Bennett sisters. Frivolous fun! Perfect for a lazy summer afternoon.

-Peggy McKee, Section Manager, Historical Fiction

 
Nature

Beat the heat in the Nature section, where you can learn all about how to survive in the wilderness, foraging for edible plants, and the mysteries of the ravens in the Tower of London, among other incredible topics related to nature, birds, and animals!

-Serena Bramble

 
Computers

Heavy on math and computation this month, but look below that shelf for a rarity: a 1972, pre-publication draft of Knuth Volume 3, Searching and Sorting with manual edits and marginalia.

-David Cortesi

 
Judaica

Browse the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion and culture including editions of the Torah and other basic texts, Kabbalah, Jewish history, the Holocaust, memoirs, Israel, Jewish Women, the Jewish American Experience and other related subjects.

Special interest this month - Unsettled: An Anthropology of the Jews; Journey to Poland: In Search of a Vanished Jewish World; Jews and American Comics; The Illuminated Kaddish; Torah of Reconciliation; Talk Dirty Yiddish; The last trial: The Akedah; The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.

Most fiction with Jewish themes will be found in Modern Literature/Classics or Current Fiction. Books entirely in Hebrew are shelved in the European Languages section.

Shelf photos at https://fopalbooks.com/judaica.html

-Charlotte Epstein, Judaica Section Manager

 
Curious Books

Each month, Curious Books aims to offer a diverse range of reading material to the curious reader. For the July sale, we offer a colorful kaleidoscopic selection of books on mandalas. As usual, we have shelves of books that don't fit neatly into categories and some that do--our ever popular offerings of fun books on pets and other animals, for example. This is a great place to look for notebooks, ranging from the professional look to guided journals.

-Donya W.

 
Self Help/Personal Growth

This month there are many featured books, including: Right Kind of Wrong; How to Know a Person; Learning to Love Midlife; The Pathless Path; How to Not Die Alone; Building a Life Worth Living; Feeling Great; Reasons Not to Worry; Anchored; Resilience; How to Meet Yourself; Me and White Supremacy; Excellent Advice for Living; The Ripple Effect. Along with the usual bargains, there is Ask Amy, a high-value book. Next to the section of Journals and Workbooks, there are a few books on NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming). I hope you enjoy browsing the 'Popular on Amazon' and 'New Arrivals' sections along with the organized subsections. May you have a Joyful July,

-Marnie

 
SF/Fantasy/Comics

In or near the Comics section this month look for a red cart with three gorgeous (and enormous -- don't drop them on your foot!) books from Taschen. The Stan Lee Story: which is so big it comes with a custom carrying case with handle; 75 Years of Marvel, and 75 Years of DC. All priced at less than half what you'd pay online.

Also in Comics, another installment of comic magazines in fine condition, mostly bagged. Longer runs of some titles are packaged together, with short runs and one-offs in the file boxes on the bottom shelf. Mostly Marvel Avengers-related titles, plus Dark Horse Star Wars series.

In Science Fiction, a small set of the always fast-selling Warhammer books and two recent books from Cixin Liu. In Fantasy, Tolkien's The Nature of Middle-Earth, the latest posthumous volume of stuff left out of The Silmarillion.

Shelf pictures on fopalbooks.com.

-Rich McAllister

 
Donations

We accept donations on Monday through Saturday from 3-5 pm in the Main Room. But we close to donations in the week before the sale so that we can prepare the Main Room for the sale. Which means that we are closed for donations from Sunday July 7 through Sunday July 14. Please hold your donations until Monday July 15.

Please read our donation guidelines before you bring materials to us.

 
Suggestions?

We're always eager to hear your suggestions for ways to improve our book sale. Please email us at suggestions@friendspaloaltolib.org.