Mountain Chatter
20,000 Books to Benefit Green Free Library

Friends of the Green Free Library will be holding their annual fundraising book sale earlier than usual this year, the week before the Laurel Festival. There will be at least 20,000 books for sale. Fiction and children’s books will be outside. All others will be in the church hall next door: cookbooks, biography, art, music, religion, philosophy, psychology, travel, health, history, how-to, hobby, and large print. New categories have been added for your convenience—thrillers/mysteries, true crime, young adult, and more.

This year there are many lovely coffee-table books, plus hundreds of books donated by the Reverend Dr. Robert K. Greer upon his retirement from the First Presbyterian Church. He was also a columnist for Mountain Home magazine.

New this year is the Book Sale Silent Auction now in progress: 15 rare and collectible books, ranging from nearly new to almost 150 years old, are on display in a locked case in the library foyer along with a binder where a bidder may record a bid. A book list with a minimum bid for each book, ranging from $10 up to $150, is beside the case. Bids will be taken through the end of the book sale, with high bidders named at the close of the sale on June 14. During the sale, auction books and binder will be in the Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, where a Friends member will be on hand to assist and monitor bidding.

Several of the auction books have a local connection to Wellsboro and surrounding areas. The book with the highest minimum bid value is a hardcover first edition of “Life in Wellsboro 1880-1920” by Gale Largey at $150. These are hard to find and highly valued by those who own them.

Runner-up for highest minimum bid is “Forest Runes” by George Sears, a first edition book published in 1887, starting bid at $100. Sears was also known as Nessmuk.

-Kay Barrett

WHAT: Friends of the Green Free Library Annual Book Sale
WHEN: Wednesday June 11, 4–7 p.m. (Members-Only Sale), Thursday and Friday June 12–13, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., Saturday June 14, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. ($2.00 a bag day)
WHERE: The Library Lawn, 134 Main Street, Wellsboro AND the First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 130 Main Street (corner of Norris Street), Wellsboro
NOTES: The Book Sale this year is the week before Wellsboro’s Laurel Festival. To participate in the Friends Members-Only Sale, “Join Before or At The Door.”  Minimum membership fee is $10/year, with membership forms available in the library.