I Love Library Booksales

I have the good fortune to work in a major public library, and our booksales always have a linguistic treasure or two. This season’s booksale just finished, and I picked up two books on Swahili (one a dictionary, one a “Teach Yourself” title) and a dictionary of German synonyms.

At other booksales, I’ve picked up books on learning languages and, a number of years ago, one outlining all the similarities between Scandinavian languages and Native American ones (trying to “prove” that Eastern Native American languages were directly related to the Viking settlers of North America, if I remember correctly).

There have been some ones I’ve kicked myself for not buying. I’m thinking especially of last year when I saw a complete set of The Lord of the Rings in a Russian translation. Saw it lying on a table and thought, “Oh, I need to stop back around and pick that up.” By the time I came back, they were gone. I even remember looking through them a the time and thinking, “Ah, no translation of the Appendices.”

Oh, well, I can curl up with my German synonyms, and see how I can create some vocabulary. Sure, I could have used a Roget’s, but synonyms in another language than English seemed a more interesting way to go.

Anyone willing to share any finds they’ve come across at library booksales?