• If possible, please hold large donations until after our Saturday and Sunday Sale Days.
• Books brought in a day or two before the sale may not make it onto the shelves that month. (If you wish to see them on display, plan accordingly)
• We're crowded. Please limit your Sale Day donations to a bag or two of books.
• No popular magazines, no National Geographic, no Gourmet, no Sunset.... FOPAL is phasing out accepting any periodicals.

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?

Spring Forward This Sale Weekend

Daylight Saving Time begins this Sunday, which means you'll want to be sure to move your clock forward by one hour on Saturday night. Otherwise, you'll arrive at our Sunday sale an hour late! Incidentally, the correct term is daylight saving time, not daylight savings time. If you had it wrong, don't feel bad. More people Google the incorrect phrase than the correct one!

Are you a regular FOPAL book sale customer and interested in running a tab during our sale? If you mention you’d like to run a tab and provide us with your contact information you can be added to our "FOPAL Sale Day Tabs- ACTIVE Eligible Buyers" list. Simply provide your name, address, phone numbers and email address (printed on our index card) and you’ll able to add books to your “tab”. Remember when purchasing more books please use the same cashier holding your tab and all tabs are to be paid by the end of each sale day.

FOPAL wants to give a big shout out of thanks to TE Connectivity in Menlo Park for their generous donation of 90+ boxes of science and management books. These books will be available in April, May...in the Main Room, Bargain Room and posted online at www.amazon.com/shops/grandmabetsybooks

For this weekend's sale look for a special from our Politics section. This section has almost all new inventory with a subsection of special books. The Politics section manager and his assistants have been working together to process hundreds of books that were donated recently.

The West this month is brimming with books on Alaska. Also, check this section for books about Palo Alto, its history, community directories.

For FOPAL Trekkie or Trekker fans (A Trekkie or Trekker is a fan of the Star Trek franchise, or of specific television series or films within that franchise) check out a nice selection of books on all things Star Trek. Look for this special to your right in the second bay from the sorting room entrance.

The March FOPAL sale is also going to be a big one for DVDs. The DVD shelves are packed full waiting to find their way to homes of FOPAL's movie lovers as well as special in the end bay near the check-out line dedicated to DVD TV series.

Framed Art for March is offering 100+ pieces! Look for some signed a few numbered prints, one huge original oil as well as lots of photos prints. This March's selection is one of our biggest!

 
Local History & The West

"We have lots of interesting items this month in The West, especially as relates to Palo Alto and its surroundings. In addition to our offerings on California history, including many issues of California History magazine, we have a large section of books on Women in the West, the Southwest and Northwest, early Western exploration and a large donation of books on Alaska. In addition, we have a nice selection of books on Western fiction. Stop by to see what is new this month!" -K.C. Sarr

 
March DVDs

"Need something to do on a rainy afternoon? This month's FOPAL sale features a deluge of DVDs.

"Grab a critically acclaimed film like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Dallas Buyers Club, Selma or The Sting.

"In the TV section, choose from Alias, Chuck, ER, Grey's Anatomy, Good Eats, Highlander, Homeland, La Femme Nikita, Lost, Mad Men, The Mary Tyler More Show, NCIS, Monk, Space 1999, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Xena: Warrior Princess and many more! If you love SciFi checkout The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (Blu-ray), Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray), Star Wars (episodes 1-4) or Inception.

"Or add to your Classics collection with Psycho (Blu-ray), Oklahoma!, The Searchers, The Philadelphia Story or Spartacus." -Dean Ujihara

 
Health Section

"This month we are featuring a SenseSational collection of books about our five Senses: SIGHT (color, brightness, shape ;) TASTE (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami ;) SOUND (vibrations that touch our eardrums -- loud and soft ;) SMELL (chemical reactions that, along with those of Taste, make us salivate or say "ugh" if necessary ;) and TOUCH (pressure, temperature, pain--and even itch. Then there are subsets of the senses: Balance, Rhythm, Empathy, ESP etc. Oliver Sacks is a past master at writing about senses, and what happens when they malfunction, but we’ve got other authors whose exploration into our many Senses make fantastic reading. It's interesting that many of the writings about physical perceptions expand the definition of "Senses" to include psychological and humanistic sensitivity. Another new collection takes us from the sensory top of our bodies and minds to the bottom: we've gotten a number of books we haven’t seen before about FEET." -Verne Rice

 
March Sets

"Sets in March include Irving's Works, undated but apparently 1875, a set of 10 volumes, $25, and The French Immortals, a set of 20 volumes, 1923, $30.

"Part sets include Scott's The Waverley Novels, a series of 23 volumes from a larger set, fine illustrations by Cruikshank, marbled, 1875, sold as a set, $100, the Yale edition, Works of Samuel Johnson, volumes 1 through 10 and 14, 1967, $150 as a set. We also have Works of Rudyard Kipling 21 volumes from a larger set, 1899, $5 each. The illustrated Bulwer's Novels, 1891, 21 volumes of a 32 volume set, $4 each, a series of 10 volumes by Jonathan Swift, 1964, $4 each, and a series of 11 volumes from Balzac's Human Condition, 1899, well-illustrated, $3 each. Also, we have the unusual St. Nicholas, an illustrated magazine for young folk, eight assorted volumes from 1881 on, with excellent embossed red covers, $4 each.

"More sets will be found in their subject areas such as History in aisle 11 and Fiction in aisle 15 with even more sets are in the Bargain Room. Don't forget, a set only counts as one book when you are buying within the 12 book limit." -Nigel Jones

 
Nature for March

"Wildflower Season is here...our best in years! Check out our flyers on the best places to view them, and then pick up a low-priced book (or three) on how to identify your finds.  We offer: California Mountain Wildflowers, Munz, Spring Wildflowers of the San Francisco Bay Region, Sharsmith, California Spring Wildflowers, Munz, among many others. Hiking guides include: Easy Hiking in Northern California, Brown, 60 Hikes in the Bay Area, Peninsula Trails, you get the picture. Not a hiker? Peruse our New Arrivals section packed with best-sellers, books by well-known authors, and controversial topics. Proceeds support our local libraries." -Karen D.

 
March Music

"Visit the Music section for books on a wide variety of musical topics in the genres of classical, rock, jazz, American music and dance. New this month - My Music is My Flag; VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave; Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music; Too Many Songs by Tom Lehrer; Elvis 56; Mambo Kingdom: Latin Music In New York; The Bab Ballads by W.S. Gilbert; Rock and Roll Doctor; The Chronicle of Jazz; Don't Think Twice It's Alright by Bob Dylan; On the Road with Janis Joplin; Lester Leaps In.

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

 
Philosophy section

"Two books worthy of note this month, and not seen here before, are Utopia from the New York Public Library and the four volume set The Greek Thinkers by Gomperz. Other new arrivals include Rousseau and Revolution by Durant, Freedom by Patterson, Birth of the Mind by Marcus, The Derrida Reader by Kamuf, Kant and the Platypus by Eco, Postmodernism by Sim and Complexity by Waldrop.  Also don't forget to look in the Bargain Room for more philosophy." -Nigel Jones

 
Science section

"The Science section is again packed with a lot of great books. This month we have an especially large selection of books on biology and genetics, robotics, and cosmology. As always we have shelves packed full of popular science books around the corner next to Philosophy and throughout the section. Our usual marked shelves (roughly from the main aisle down towards the corner are): popular science, popular math, advanced math, college math, calculus, geometry/algebra, chemistry, biology/genetics, physics, electronics, hobby electronics, geology, geography, mechanical and civil engineering, aeronautics and the space program, cosmology, practical engineering and science, history of science and technology, biography, Einstein, astronomy, cosmology, and general science writing.

"Additionally, there will be a $1 cart filled with very nice science/technology textbooks. We always suggest that folks look for science books in the Bargain Room. Because we get so many wonderful donations in our section, we never have room for everything in the main book sale room." -Dick Grote/Ed Walker

 
European Languages

"We have lots of new stuff in French, mostly contemporary fiction (including a novel called J'ai epouse un con), and several cookbooks. We also have a fair amount of new stuff in German, including two books of Dilbert, and a novel called Macho Man with a bright pink cover." -Susan Strain

 
2017 March Judaica

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

"New this month: Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama; The ''Jewish Threat'' - Anti-Semitic Politics in the U.S. Army; Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family's Correspondence from Poland; Jewish Women and Their Salons - The Power of Conversation; Covenant & Conversation Genesis: The Book of Beginnings; Talking Back- Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture; The Will to Live On by Herman Wouk.

"Check the appropriate fiction section if you are interested in literature with a Jewish or Israeli theme though I do display a few Folklore books." -Charlotte Epstein

 
Teen Reviews by Tristan Wang

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Street urchin and tosher boy Dodger acted on keen instinct when he saved a battered young woman from her assaulters on a stormy night. Yet this single act of decency will cost him his anonymity and immunity as he is caught in the midst of a violent political scheme, which bears great danger and thrilling adventure. Can he gather his wits and survive?

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

One of the earliest classic sci-fis to detail conflict between extraterrestrials and humankind. With their home planet dying, the Martians invade Earth in a vicious and desperate conquest, beginning with the quiet town of Woking. With unmatched technology, the aliens cause severe turmoil and were finally halted by an abrupt demise in Victorian London.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Featuring true events, Krakauer details the 113-day solo trek of then-recent Emory University graduate Christopher Johnson McCandless through the Alaskan wilderness, a daring yet obscure endeavor that resulted in his death. The confounding experiences and motivations behind McCandless' adventure, as well as the grief and puzzlement of his relatives are speculated through a compelling narrative.