As usual for the family, we do a volunteer project each Christmas Day.
This year after breakfast we headed out to volunteer and got our assignment.
Our job was to help sort donated books for an upcoming book sale - Bookstock - that raises money for charity, mainly for raising funds for education and literacy in the Detroit area.
To say this was a very enjoyable volunteering opportunity for a family of bibliophiles was an understatement.
Donated books in boxes and stacks by the ton needed to be sorted into various categories - history, sci-fi, religion, fiction, mysteries, romance, biography, classics, children's books, trade paperbacks, art, etc.
This occasionally led to lots of fun discussions as to where to place a certain book. The elderly ladies in charge declared, for example, that Tom Clancy belonged in Science Fiction and not fiction because he sold better that way. One did not argue if you knew what was good for you.
Some donated books were unfortunately in lousy shape and were unsaleable had to go in the recycling bin, others sorted turned out to be rare books that were set aside for valuation.
I helped sort books, bring in shipments of books to the sorting room from the storage rooms on carts, and then sort even more books.
Lots of neat books passed through my hands on the way to the sorted piles. Every possible subject was present among the donated books.
It was a very nice volunteering opportunity with a bunch of people who all worked hard to get thousands of books sorted and prepared for the sale in record time.
I'm definitely going to have to shop at the book sale.
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