Just call me anal!

I went to the Salvation Army's book fair in The Basin yesterday morning. I knew I had no chance of coming across a rare copy of Jane at the Chalet School for $2, because a) the Salvation Army are pretty savvy when it comes to pricing old books and b) Meryll Williams of Rainy Day Books was a mere minute's drive from the venue and so was bound to find such mega-bargains first! But I hoped I might find a few cheap children's classics, as I did at the book fair on Philip Island back in January. There I found Tom's Midnight Garden and The Children of Green Knowe, among others, for two bucks per book; I like my son, who's nine, to read classic children's literature as well as contemporary kidlit.

But I came out with nowt! There were lots of books, the non-fiction in one room, the fiction in another. But in the fiction room, the books hadn't been sorted by alphabetical order or even by genre. (The non-fiction had been sorted into genre, but was not in alpha order.) My son and I looked through the children's books, didn't find anything either of us wanted, and then I started to look at the adult fiction, but it was all such a mess and I couldn't be bothered going through it all just in case I found a Margery Allingham.

I appreciate the book sale was run by volunteers, and they don't have time for sorting. But I've gone into one or two bookshops like this over the years, where all the books are higgledy-piggledy on the shelves and piled on the floor in no particular order. If you have lots of time to browse, that's great. But not everyone does. I just don't have time to spend hours in one bookshop, painstakingly going through everything just in case I find a gem. I'd rather go online and buy exactly what I want - or even better, go to a bookshop where everything is arranged by genre, then alphabetically.

Come to think of it, Meryll is a busy lady too - maybe that elusive Chalet book was there among the Barbara Taylor Bradfords ...