August 1, 2013 Edition: Front page, top fold
"Paperback pilgrimmage: Throngs flock to Friends summer rite of reading"
Westport Friends (Quaker) 52nd Annual Used Book Fair
Grounds of the Society of Friends Meeting House
918 Main Road
Westport, MA
July 13, 2013
The opening moments under the tents in the annual Friends Used Book
Fair feel like a combination of religious observance and tag sale. The
pilgrims drawn to this event revere books and have acquisitive
tendencies.
Like pilgrims of yore, they want to return to their
homes with relics, in this case pulpy ones, to enrich their lives. They
may even proselytize, encouraging friends to establish faith with their
favorite authors when they arrive back home. As with pilgrims the world
over, they bond quickly with others on the same quest. Even in the first
hour, when seekers are especially focused on finding prized books
amongst the tables lined with row upon row of paperback titles, you
might hear, “That’s one of my favorite books,” uttered quietly by a
shopper who sees a seeker pluck a title from a tightly packed row.
After
initial whoops of excitement when the opening whistle pierces the air,
the areas under the yellow and white striped tents have the aura of an
outdoor chapel, hushed voices, the sound of feet shuffling over the
gravel underfoot, and the soft plunking sound as shoppers drop a
paperback into a sack or carton.
The area is wall-to-wall
people. Moving along the narrow rows between tables is not accomplished
by volition but by flowing with the languid current of engrossed
shoppers. This is not the place for claustrophobics. This is one place
where little kids never have to be told twice to stay right next to
mommy or daddy. After thirty seconds, they realize that with one
lackadaisical moment they’d lose contact with the parental unit.
On
this hot, humid, July morning, the atmosphere under the tents feels
like a greenhouse. Scents of sunscreen, shampoo, and perspiration hang
like musk in the breeze-less shade of the tents and blend incongruously
with the smell of paperback books having been packed and stored for
months, now liberated chock a block on the tables.
If you were
to bottle the competing aromas, I’ll bet that anyone who’s previously
attended one of these book fairs could identify it in a heartbeat as
“Eau de Book Fair.”
Sometimes the pebbles on the ground are as captivating as the book in your hand as Levi Sardinha, 3, discovers as his brother Colin Sardinha, 6, focuses on print and pictures.
Nancy and Jeffrey Sardinha got the book fair bug last year. ”We had just moved here from Fall River,” Nancy says. “My husband read about the fair in the paper. We can never have enough books in the house.”
Photos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
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