August Happiness Challenge -- Day 1

Today's happiness: The Village Book Fair. I'm so glad that I live in a village of book lovers, where the library has three branches, and the annual fundraiser is an event that has people lined up around the block.

It always offers such great values, too. This year my find was a gift for my friend Kathleen, a scholarly, out of print history of The Chicago Tribune. (She used to work there and that's where her heart remains.) Just $2! As was my hardcover copy of the well-reviewed Sinatra biography, The Voice. I also grabbed an Agatha Christie (I've never read Miss Marple) and a Linda Fairstein. Total? $6 and change!

Another thing I enjoy about the book fair is seeing which book is so over. There's one every year -- the book my neighbors bought in big numbers and then decided, seemingly at all once, to discard.

In 2006, it was The Corrections.
In 2007, The Nanny Diaries.
In 2008, The Da Vinci Code.
In 2009, My Life by Bill Clinton.
In 2010, Scarlett, the Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone with The Wind.
In 2011, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
In 2012, Sixkill by Robert B. Parker (a Spenser mystery)
In 2013, The Da Vinci Code all over again.
In 2014, it's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.