Browse among thousands of items at George Mason Library book sale

The book sale offers many items in other languages.

The big Spring Book Sale at George Mason Regional Library in Annandale, with up to 80,000 items, is just a few weeks away.

The sale, hosted by George Mason Friends, is April 28-May 1. It’s open 3-9 p.m. on Thursday, April 28, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on April 29, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on April 30, and noon-5 on Sunday, May 1.

Books are organized into categories, such as young adult fiction, literature, drama, poetry, American history, world history, military history, bestsellers, mysteries, science fiction, romance, graphic novels, and much more. There is an entire room devoted to children’s titles.

There’s much more than books, though. The sale includes videos, audio books, computer games, sheet music, CDs, and role-playing game manuals and periodicals.

Rare books, autographed books, and other collectible books will be there, as well as beautiful art books, pop-up books, comic books, vintage pulp fiction, and vintage magazines. For more information, visit the George Mason Friends blog.

Some of the special finds at the spring sale, include:

• A beautiful, artisan edition of Little Journeys to Homes of the Great, published in 1922 by the Roycrofters, an artists’ community founded by Elbert Hubbard, a leading interpreter of the Arts and Crafts movement.
• A nicely printed and bound portfolio of prompt books for the Smock Alley production of Macbeth. Smock Alley was the first Theatre Royal in Dublin, built in 1662. Prompt books include notes on how plays were to be performed. 
• Smyth’s Sketches in the Canadas, a large format book with reproductions of watercolors by  John Richard Coke Smyth.
• A collection of Currier & Ives lithographs illustrating American life from 1834 to 1895.
• A collection of magazines and souvenir programs featuring the British monarchy in the mid-20th century.

Proceeds from the sale benefit the entire Fairfax County Public Library System, as well as George Mason Library. One of the George Mason Friends’ most important county projects is helping to fund the Children’s Summer Reading Program.