Suddenly I'm longing for a rainy day...

Some people get huge end-of-year bonuses or attend fancy conferences in exotic locations for their jobs.

At the paper, we get a crack at really cheap books.

Lest you think I’m being a sarcastic and cynical reporter, I think this is an AWESOME perk. Twice a year the newsroom holds a book sale, usually in late spring and in December, just in time for Christmas shopping. Several thousand books are up for grabs – the vast leftovers of what’s been sent to the books editor for months. (He, by the way, receives more mail than anyone I’ve ever known).

Nearly everything costs $1 and the money goes towards causes such as literacy programs and journalism scholarships. This time one of the programs the sale supported is the Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College, which gives high school students a crack at journalism. It is a very cool program that has been in financial trouble lately.

We just held the sale last Friday. It is a fabulous, jumbled up flea market of books released in the last year or so, plus a few things people have finally cleaned off of their desks.

This time I was thrilled to snag a variety of titles, including Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner, Midnight in Austenland by Shannon Hale and Father’s Day by Buzz Bissinger. I also grabbed a few books as gifts. And one about raw food that may never get cracked, but for which I have the best intentions. (I was feeling ambitious and do-goody when I picked up that one).

The best part is that I was able to get a lot of fantastic children’s books for my little ones. Reading is a big deal at our house and my little boy gets so excited about new books.

While we set up for the sale and unpack boxes, there’s a running commentary along the lines of, “Gee, what a surprise. Bristol Palin has a ghostwriter.” Or, “It’s amazing how just a typefont can turn you off.” And boy howdy does a lot of strange stuff get published.

Here’s the publishing trends we noticed during our totally unscientific, snarky commentary that accompanies the sale set up: Lots of fantasy. Lots of middle grade, which we usually don’t see in the review piles. Lots of diet books (always). Lots of history.

I snagged some lovely classics – Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility, Wuthering Heights and Price and Prejudice – published by Splinter, an imprint of Sterling Publishing.

I’ve read them all of course. But I’m a sucker for good design, and these covers by fashion illustrator Sara Singh were too gorgeous to resist.

Especially for a buck. And hooray, it looks like new titles, including Emma and Great Expectations, will be released in the fall.

I lugged out $28 worth of books and nearly dislocated my shoulder getting to the car. Totally worth it.

– Jen