It Begins...

Tomorrow is the first day of the book sale. From 7-9 p.m., PTS students and faculty get a jump on the book buying madness. I won't be participating in the mad consumption since I've already had my fill. In the past week and a half, I have acquired 24 new free books as a reward for sorting and moving and sorting again.

When you walk into the gym, it's crazy. Over 40 12' long tables chock full of books fill the room. As we ran out of space on top of the tables, we started laying books underneath. In almost every category, we had enough books to completely cover the table and the floor beneath. The weirdest part is that none of it was there before 4 p.m.-ish yesterday!

There is a gigantic stack of boxes in one corner of the gym (pictured at right). The ceiling is probably about 30 feet high and it reaches almost all the way to the top. This morning, shortly after 8:30, I caused a box avalanche while attempting to receive some box tops. Fortunately, very few people had arrived, so there wasn't any teasing.

There was also a massive pile of boxes in the middle of the gym (pictured at left) that still needed to be sorted, but Marcy, Jordan, I and a handful of other people, who came and went, had them all sorted and placed on the proper tables by about 3 p.m. It was very satisfying to see the progress that we made as the day went on. It was freaking awesome when we finally sorted the last box.

Of course, it wasn't really the last box. As soon as we were "finished" they brought some more of the special collections (old, rare books and complete sets) boxes up to be sorted and put on display. Though the book sale thing can sort of become an obsession, I was ready to leave. The book sale people are grooming Jordan to become the next book sale person, though...

Anyway, if you're going to be in the Princeton area on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, stop at the PTS gym (on the corner of Hibben Road and Route 206) and have a look around. The prices are reasonable ($5 for hardcovers and $2 for paperbacks on Monday), the variety is sure to please almost anyone (everything from children's books to Paul Tillich and Karl Barth), all the money goes to overseas seminaries, and there are at least 5 copies of The Purpose Driven Life and the accompanying journal. Come on down!