Where books are born again

I was browsing through my favorite section at the Friends of the Library Old Book Sale on Thursday.

You can usually find me at Georgiana/South books at Table No. 39.

I was nearing the end of row of books with everything from Faulkner to Grizzard to Pat Conroy when a man reached over and handed me a book.

It was “More Gris.’’

He was grinning.

A few minutes later, someone tugged at my sleeve with a copy of “Once Upon a Whoopee.”

“Ever read this?” he asked.

We both laughed. Why, of course, I have. I wrote it.

When I started writing books nine years ago – I’ve now written five of them – one of the fears I had to overcome was the fear of one day ending up on the bargain book table at the local bookstore.

That is the graveyard where all books go to die.

The same could be said for the annual Old Book Sale at Central City Park. You figure if folks really wanted your book, they wouldn’t donate it to the Friends of the Library.

It used to break my heart whenever I saw one of my books on the table. There was almost a feeling of rejection. My first inclination was to quickly grab the book and put it in my bag before anybody saw it. That would save any embarrassment on my part.

Or I wanted to see if I had personalized the book. That way I would know the culprit. But, in recent years, I’ve come to realize it’s not the same as the “bargain book table.’’ Those books in the bookstore have never been purchased. Their prices have been slashed. They are on the clearance table.

At least if you make the Old Book Sale in the Long Building at Central City Park, you can at least claim to have been recycled.

You were loved once, and now you can be loved again.

You’re not being rejected. You’re being shared.

Makes you feel a little better about it, anyway.