By Laura Peach
A few years ago, single and sullen on a rainy Valentines Day, I was moping past the library on my way back to my apartment. A sandwich board sign for the “Book Lovers Library Discard Sale” caught my eye and enticed me inside. A small, closetish room on the first floor was bursting with books soon to be orphaned from the library shelves. I spent my time scanning several spines before settling on a cheery red art history text from the 1920s and a distinguished hardcover volume on Hanoi. Happily home I went with these beautiful books in my arms, decidedly less depressed.
Whether or not you have a Valentine this year, you’ll be sure to find literary love at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair this Saturday. Peruse the offerings of hundreds of rare booksellers, and pick up the tomes that turn on your inner bibliophile, from a first addition of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to a signed copy of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.
