If you cannot attend the book sale, please drop by the Friends Bookstore located inside the Mitchell Park Library, Downtown Library, and Rinconada Library, and open during library hours. They are restocked regularly with a unique selection of books for all ages and interests.

 
Suggestions?

What's Special for October 2016

This weekend's sale features an extension of the HP Labs collection and Popular Science specials. Shop these unique books one more month and look for Fall Holidays to take this space for November and December. Look for these specials in the bookcases just outside the sorting/donation room (opposite Travel). A large donation of music books and sheet music came in last month and are just now making it to the Music sections. Look for music books and sheet music sections in the Main Room to especially full for October. Look for the overflow of music books in the Bargain Room (Room H2).

Love languages? Then the European Language section is a "must shop" section for you this October at FOPAL. Here's what a customer wrote: "So, enjoy your book sales. I bought so many wonderful books there and was able to become a very fluent French reader because I could afford the books there...." For this month come and check out the European Language section for many terrific looking books in Czechoslovakian. FOPAL's Political Science section was given a makeover says section manager Jim Johnson. Come grab several good reads from the Political Science offerings this October as the big election is just around the corner!

 
Members Annual Meeting for 2016

Date: Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Time: 10:30am
Place: Rinconada Library, Embarcadero Room
Agenda: Election of 2017 Board members and officers; annual financial summary from the Treasurer; other business from the members.

Please join us at our annual meeting on October 12 at the Rinconada Library branch. The floor will be open to you, the members, to give us your thoughts on what you think FOPAL is doing well, and how its operations might be improved. We look forward to seeing you at the annual meeting.

 
Shout out for Transition Share Faire with Costume Swap!

Transition Palo Alto is holding a Share Faire event with a Halloween theme and a Costume Swap. This event will be on the Cubberley Community Center campus, Sunday October 9 between 1pm and 3pm, so will be convenient to people attending our Sunday sale. It is open to the public and free, and invites people to share goods, ideas, and community; and to enjoy mini skill share workshops.

More information is available on Transition Palo Alto's Share Faire page.

 
2016 October Music

"Visit the Music section for books on a wide variety of musical topics in the genres of classical, rock, jazz, world music, and dance.

New this month: The Dulcimer Book; A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano; Beethoven's Hair; Verdi at the Golden Gate: Opera and San Francisco in the Gold Rush Years; Giants of Jazz by Studs Terkel; Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now; The Beatles: 10 YEARS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD.

Also browse our wide selection of sheet music neatly sorted by instruments including violin, piano, trumpet and guitar." -Charlotte Epstein

 
October Science

"Once again Science is packed this month. We have a holdover from last month of books donated to FOPAL from HP Laboratories. There is a wide collection of books used by the HP Labs researchers. We also have a few copies of the collected letters of Barney Oliver, the first head of HP Labs. These books can be found in the second bay on the right as you enter the book room.

Also this month, we have an extra bay of popular science. These books can be found right next to the HP Labs special. There are a lot of really interesting books (that generally don't have equations). We also have several books on robotics which can be found near electronics. We received several books related to the space program including many special NASA publications. These, too, can be found near electronics.

\240 Finally, all of our regular sections are filled with books--many new this month. Come look for math, statistics, geology, geography, chemistry, biology, genetics, mechanical and civil engineering, electrical engineering, hobby electronics, science text books, cosmology, astronomy, practical engineering, history of technology, technology biography, Einstein and relativity, and vintage science books. Each of the 9 science bookcases are labeled to help you find the books you are interested in." -Dick Grote

 
Philosophy for October

"The Philosophy section in October has a broad selection of new arrivals including, Adler's two-volume set, The Idea of Freedom, Hayman's biography of Sartre, McGinn's Minds and Bodies, and the titles, Quantum Mechanics and Whitehead, The Courtier and the Heretic, The Road Since Structure, and Character and Culture.

Don't forget the Bargain Room: there was not enough shelf space in the Main Room for all the books received and there are some excellent books to be found there as well." -Nigel Jones

 
October Judaica

"Browse the Judaica section for books on the Jewish religion, Jewish history, the Holocaust, Israel, Jewish Women, the Jewish American Experience and other related subjects.

New this month: You Never Call! You Never Write!: A History of the Jewish Mother; For the Love of Being Jewish; Great Couples of the Bible; Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame; Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle; And the Sea is Never Full by Elie Wiesel; Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora; Jerusalem Stone and Spirit: 3000 Years of History and Art. Also this month there is a small selection of books by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Check the appropriate fiction section if you are interested in literature with a Jewish or Israeli theme." -Charlotte Epstein

 
2016 October Humor

"New arrivals in October include the two volume set, Cartoon Classics for Medical Economics, and the master himself, The World of Charles Addams.

Also available: The Annotated Wizard of Oz, The Complete Cartoon of the New Yorker with DVDs (one cartoon a day for life!), Principles of Uncertainty, Monty Python Live, Republican Party Reptile, Mother on Fire, Not So Popular Myths, 30 Satires, and If Andy Warhol had a Girlfriend. Other new arrivals included Erika Lopez (3), Mortimer's Rumple's Omnibus, Fey, Sedaris, Handler and Wodehouse (5). In the British section you will find Prince Charles's favorite comedy show, The Goons, with the great Welsh comedian Harry Secombe.

Make sure to check out the Bargain Room for Humor and look through the large collection of books and cartoons." -Nigel Jones

 
Sets for October 2016

"This month we have two featured sets. Last month we sold Guizot's History of France and this month we have Guizot's five volume set, The Popular History of England, 1876, $10. The other is a very good 12 volume set, The Stoddard Library, with very fine illustrations, 1910, $15. We also have Elbert Hubbard's Little Journeys, 15 volume set, Roycrofters, 1916, with raised embossed front cover. The set is dedicated to his wife, who has signed the first volume! $25

Complete Sets include: Stevenson's Works, Edition De Luxe, The Davos Press, 1906, set of 10, 1,000 sets only, set # 176, $40. American Short Story Classics, 5 vol. set, 1905, $10. Smithsonian Scientific Series, 12 volumes set $12. The Pocket University, 13 volume set, $20. Hall Caine, 1904, 9 volume set, $10. The Encyclopedia of Science, 8 volumes set $5. Mark Twain, 24 volume set, Author's National Edition, 1899, $30.

All in aisle 15 and even more Sets are in the Bargain Room. Incomplete sets include: History of the World, Ridpath, 6 of 9 volume set, 1901, $4 each. World's Greatest Literature, Colonial Press, 1901, 15 volumes from a series, $3 each. 11 volumes in very good condition from the series, Studies in the Age of Chaucer, priced individually. Other sets will be found their subject areas such as History in aisle 11 and Fiction in aisle 15 and even more sets are in the Bargain Room." -Nigel Jones

 
Teen Recommendations by Tristan Wang

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A book with an ominous title -- and an ominous outset. The grotesque man Jack murders the Dorian family in their sleep -- save the toddler upstairs, who had unwittingly crawled out of the house and into the nearby cemetery. Here, its supernatural "residents" convene and agree to raise him as one of their own. Renamed Nobody, or Bod for short, the boy must brave the horrors of the graveyard, which, as he will discover, is never quite as frightening as the reality of living.

War Horse by Michael Morpurgo

Set in the midst of the Great War, Joey, a half-Thoroughbred farm horse, is sold to the British cavalry and thrust into the brutal fighting on the Western Front. While the tale is unique in having a first-person animal narrator, it only serves to amplify the emotional impact by contrasting the horse's utter incomprehension of human atrocity, with the moving loyalty and courage that others boldly evince. The clash of wills drives the poignant tale along as much as the timeless question: will Joey ever reunite with Albert -- the farmer's son he left behind?

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

The classic children's fairy tale follows young orphan James Henry Trotter, the "saddest and loneliest boy you could find," living with his two wicked aunts after losing his parents to a rhinoceros attack. That is, until a wizened old man, some magic crystals, a giant peach, a jolly band of talking insects, and a riveting and humorous adventure, reverses his misery forever.