August Happiness Challenge -- Day 7

Today's happiness: The Village Book Fair. I live in a village of book lovers, where the library has three branches, and every year, the first night of this fundraiser has people lined up around the block. This year some enterprising little kids who live across the street set up a lemonade stand.

It always offers such great values, too. This year my find was a gift for my friend Kathleen: Turning Point, Jimmy Carter's memoir of his first 1962 campaign ... signed by the author! Yes, I got a Presidentially autographed book for $1. I asked the guy at the counter more than once if he was sure it was just a buck, and he assured me it was. Kathleen has told me more than once that she really admires Carter, so I think she'll be thrilled. I looked it up on eBay and the cheapest signed copy was $29.99.

I got goodies for myself, too:

Franklin & Lucy, about FDR and Mrs. Rutherford
American Rose, about Gypsy Rose Lee and the Roaring 20s
Kill and Tell, a mystery by Linda Howard
Breakdown, a Chicago-based Warshawski mystery
Cat Crimes, an anthology series featuring felines
The Chocolate Cat Caper, a cozy-looking culinary-inspired mystery

Then I got three lightweight paperbacks -- a couple Graftons and an Agatha Christie -- for the troops.

All this for $11! (And all that $11 goes to the library.)

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, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
In 2015, it's "The Girl" again, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
 

What's that you say? What's the August Happiness Challenge?

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

If you want to play along, just come back here (meaning to this blog, not this individual post) each day in August, looking for the happy chocolate cone. Every day I will try to have a post with the headline: August Happiness Challenge: Day [X]. Leave a comment and then post your own daily happiness, with August Happiness Challenge in the title to make it easy to find.