July is picnic month!

"It’s a Beautiful day!" "Not a cloud in the sky!" "A-picnicking we go!" Looking for some picnic ideas or inspiration?

Our Cookbooks area is here to help you maximize your picnic potential -- whether you're planning your very first al fresco meal or you're already a veteran picnicker!

You'll discover food ideas and recipes there for family trips, children's outdoor parties, barbecues, special adult packed meals and snacks for outdoor occasions of every description. You could learn how to plan, what to pack.... You'll find suggestions for anything and everything to do with al fresco dining -- so outdoor eating and drinking will become loads more fun, as you enjoy the freedom of being away from the confines of your home.

Also, our Nature / Animals and Travel Guides areas are filled with books on where to go for that outdoor excitement. We're so lucky in the Bay Area to be blessed with a greenbelt that provides endless varieties of picnic options. Look for books on hiking, biking or visiting the bay area back roads for plenty of suggestions on where to picnic. For more fun you could plan on bringing one of our wonderful fiction books to read on your picnic.

 
Preview Our Shelves

Check out some of the thousands of books that will be on sale this weekend using our shelf preview pictures.

 
Summertime Reading -- More Fiction please!

It's summertime and the living is...a little bit easier. We all look forward to the warm, lazy afternoons, the lure of the beach towel, or chaise longue, picnic blanket or even the airplane seat. (Who doesn't want to lose herself in a good book then?)

Those are precisely the moments when you need to roundup some of FOPAL’s most delectable reads. With many of our novels priced from fifty cents to two dollars, you could fill your carry on or beach bags with several great books. We have more books than ever in our Classics, Modern Lit and the recent hardbacks areas. There are so many great titles and authors we can’t begin to list them all, but we will mention one: in Historical Fiction we have an extensive collection of books by Patrick O'Brian. You may even see more than one copy of the same title; why not buy both books, so you and your traveling companion can read a book together!

 
Children’s Room brimming with books!

Over the past several months the volunteers in the Children’s Room were concerned they didn’t have enough donation and their shelves seems a bit empty. So as if all their wishes and wants were heard by every mother within a 10 mile radius and they in unison decreed "Kids, clean your rooms, gather all your gently used books and let’s bring them down to the Friends of the Palo Alto Library to donate." Thankfully our cries were heard and now the Children’s Room is all full up. We have books in every area, Parenting, classic board games, Klutz Books, Teen reads, Sci-fi, Middle-grade Fiction, Early Chapter Books, Nancy Drew and more! Come early for the best selection and selection and enjoy the bounty of books.

 
Medicine and Health and Miscellanea Medica oh my!

Ed and Verne Rice, our long time section managers, describe below.

Our Medicine and Health sections are right inside the door to Marty's Room, on the North Wall.  The Medicine section features technical books for physicians, medical students, pharmacists and related professionals, on subjects that parallel the department list of any hospital or medical school. From Grey's Anatomy to the remarkable anatomic drawings of famed artist Frank Netter: surgery, pathology, biochemistry, radiology, clinical laboratory, psychiatry, pharmacology, hematology, ophthalmology, and otorhinolaryngology.  You name it, if you can pronounce it.

The Health section examines the same subjects from the standpoint of patients and people who care about maintaining their own well-being. You'll find books on specific diseases and disorders: diabetes, cardiovascular illness, cancer, endocrinology, gynecology, pain control, Alzheimer's, allergies, skin, feet, sleep problems, eating disorders, drugs (good and bad), substance abuse, symptoms (the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to...). Like when to call the doctor; when and how to try home management. Focus on connections between mind and body, fitness and prevention, diet, nutrition, exercise, yoga, aging gracefully, and alternative medicine.  This section is Hypochondriacs' Heaven. There's a shelf of newly arrived, brand new and especially interesting books, many best-sellers, too varied to classify.

And between Medicine and Health, a new Miscellanea Medica collection holds overlapping subjects on the Culture of Medicine:  Medical history, economics, ethics, education, legislation, global health, research, philosophy, memoirs, doctor-patient relationships, fascinating old books, classics in health literature. As well as the best of contemporary health journalism from Oliver Sacks to Atul Gawande and Pulitzer Prize winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee.

 
Out of EPA Storage - Eyes on Africa

Our special on African books continues this month. In August 2010 a fire at Cubberley Community Center damaged our Main Room, destroying computers and equipment, and causing major damage to the modular building just days before our monthly book sale. Donations didn't stop, though. As a result, hundreds of books went into a warehouse space generously arranged by one of our regular customers. Now we are in the process of clearing out this storage space and bringing these books priced in 2010 to you. One special we found in storage was dozens of books on Africa. Look for our books on Africa in History, Politics, Nature and Travel Narratives and also a number of books were shelved in Modern Literature. Check out these sections for books on Africa as these are previously priced and are just waiting to be purchased.