Touted as the biggest sale of its kind in Northern New England, the Curtis Memorial Sale takes place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with books being re-stocked all weekend long. Can't get there at the crack of dawn on Friday? (There are people who line up early to get in right at 10 a.m.). Straggle in any time. On Sunday, when things are winding down, you can fill a grocery bag for three bucks. That's right. Things might be picked over by then, but I have come away on Sunday many a time with absolute treasures.
So what does this have to do with mysteries and Maine?
The Maine part is obvious. But the mystery novel category, one of 45 carefully sorted categories the sale offers, is one of the biggest. For $3 hardcover and $2 soft/trade, you can stock up on all the titles and authors you've missed the year before. And there is occasionally a really old/rare book you can snatch up. I found one last year entitled Shadow Kills (Beaufort Books, 1985), written by Rodman Philbrick of Kittery. His early protagonist was a cop-turned-mystery-writer Jack Dawkins, confined to a wheelchair after a work-related accident. If you love Boston, you'll love these books.
These are contemporaries of the Spenser novels and you'll delight in a Boston before the Big Dig, where Jack recalls eating drunken late-night breakfasts at the Hayes-Bickford and drinking at The Hillbilly Ranch. I even remember this Boston. I ended up meeting Rod Philbrick after I reviewed one of the Jack Dawkins novels for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance's Maine in Print newspaper. Rod wrote me a letter (yes, this was pre-email) to thank me for the kind review. I brought him up to MWPA to lead a workshop on writing suspense. He's still at it, but not with Jack Dawkins, whom he let go because it was difficult to get Jack out of trouble while in a wheelchair. (That's my best memory of what Rod once told me.) He went on to write the very popular Young Adult novel Freak the Mighty.
Wow, did I get off on a tangent! But I'm passionate about these sales. They happen all over Maine and the country, so ask at your local library or do a simple Google search and plug in "used book sales."
My husband and I are planning on getting there tomorrow early to get a head start. I also collect old cookbooks and have gotten a few gems there too.
Here's the link: /http://www.curtislibrary.com/annual-book-sale
And Maine writers Kate Flora and Lea Wait wrote about other types of happenings at local libraries. Read their blog post here: http://mainecrimewriters.com/kates-posts/spending-a-maine-summer-in-the-library
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