Monday, March 13, 2017

What are People Reading These Days?


Avoid shoveling the snow, stay inside and curl up with a good book. Since March is National Reading Month, I want to highlight the Friends of the Library (FOL) Used Book Sale at the Olney library. Other volunteers and I sift through, organize and shelve donations from local residents. We receive and sell bestselling novels, nonfiction, popular children’s (preschool through teenage) books, even DVDs of recent movies – all for 50 cents to one dollar a piece! 

A few years ago, I shared my unscientific observations of the Olney community based on donations to the MGH Women's annual used book sale. While working on FOL Used Book Sale, I've noticed trends in donations, including: 

*   Romance novels (Nora Roberts, Danielle Steele, etc.)
*   Erotic romance (series like Fifty Shades of Grey, Bared to You, One Night Promised/Denied, Beneath This Man)
*   Crime (James Patterson, Patricia Cornwall, etc.)
*   Travel (guidebooks, foreign language phrase books, travelogues)
*   Self-help/inspirational nonfiction (Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Eat, Pray, Love, etc. )
*   Humor (Chelsea Handler, Mindy Kaling, Woody Allen, Dave Barry, etc.) 

If this selection truly reflects readers’ tastes, Olney seems to be an escapist community, traveling through guidebooks, frothy romances, erotic tales, whodunnit mysteries, Zen/”finding oneself” memoirs or just good old-fashioned humor.

Visit the FOL Used Book Sale at the Olney library to find a bargain “staycation” … or at least to spy on what other people read.


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