We have a great annual book sale here in Phoenix. It's the VNSA sale and it's held each year at the Exhibit Building at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. There are more than 600,000 books, yes, you read it right - 600,000.
The purpose of the VNSA Used Book Sale is to raise funds for three nonprofit human service agencies; Arizona Friends of Foster Children Foundation, Literacy Volunteers of Maricopa County, and Toby House.
This year the sale is being held on February 13/14, the hours are 8 am - 6 pm on Saturday, and 8 am -4 pm on Sunday. On Sunday all books are half price.
If you love books, you have to go to this sale. The prices are unbelievable. They have books from every category imaginable. It is very well organized, but be warned, there are tons and tons of people. This is the kind of thing that people line up for all night. (I think most of them are Science Fiction readers for some reason).
We usually get there around 8:30 - 9:00 on Saturday. We generally have to wait in line an hour to an hour and a half. Once inside, we split up and start shopping. We usually shop for an hour, meet up, sort through the books, and then split up again. We usually shop for 2-3 hours.
This year will be especially challenging because we're going to make a foray into the children's books. I'm determined to have a variety of books in my grandchildren library at my house. Plus, Katie wants me to buy some books for the baby to have at their house.
Jessica is flying in for the sale and we have a new strategy for this year. I'm going to combine our lists, type them up, and make copies for all three of us. That way, if we see something the other one wants, we can grab it up and then deal with it when we meet to sort.
We take our own reusable bags, they pass out plastic bags, but they don't hold enough books. This year, we're also taking our carry-on luggage. People zip them open and bungee the flap back and that way they can fill it with books and wheel it around. I figure we can also hang some of our filled bags off of them. I have "old shoulders" and they're starting to rebel at carrying 4-5 bags filled with hardbacks for 3 hours!
There are hardbacks, paperbacks, magazines, games, videos, dvds, cds, sets of books, maps, antique books, out of print books... literally anything related to reading is available at this sale.
They take cash, credit, or debit. They have a holding area where you can park your books for an hour if they get too heavy for you to carry around. There is a limited number of shopping carts, but you have to put your name in for them. It could be hours before you get one, so we don't bother.
I am so excited! Every year I find an unexpected treasure, as well as many of the books on my list. If you're a reader, you need to check this sale out; one visit and you'll be hooked! For more information and list of the categories available check out the website
http://vnsabooksale.org/
South Line above, North Line below 
We found an arrival strategy that really worked and we're going to try to implement it each year from here out. We got there at 7:45, 15 minutes before the doors opened. The lines were tremendous. There are two lines on each side of the building filtering in to a single entrance door. We were worried that we would be in line for hours. But, when the doors opened at 8:00, they let so many people in at once, that we knew we'd get in on the second wave. I figured we had 30 minutes to go until the next opening, but, again we were surprised. We only waited 10 minutes before they let us in. So, we were in the doors by 8:10 am. Wow! We waited less than when we get there after they've opened.
I am somewhere in this line.
Once inside we separated, agreeing to meet up in one hour to regroup. As expected, the children's area was a madhouse. I'm so short that it's almost impossible for me to see over and under the people crowding the tables and floor. That's where Dan & Jessica came in, they attacked the kid's books and found lots of great buys! Dan found the cutest opposites book for our granddaughter, illustrated by pictures of NFL players. Gabe's a huge football fan, so Katie bought that one off of me. I found one of the "Little House" hardbacks that I needed, but I think next year I'll have to hit the kids books first to find any others. I found Lemony Snicket books, which Kyler reads, and was able to buy him 4 volumes for the same amount that I spent on one volume at Christmas w/a coupon. Yippee!
The thing about this sale is that it's different every year. Usually there are 4-6 boxes of xstitch magazines & patterns. This year there was 1 1/2 boxes and only 1 magazine. Bummer. The Christmas book selection was small too, but I was able to score three new books, including a book of Christmas classics illustrated by Mary Engelbreit, brand-new, for $4.
Finally, 3 1/2 hours later, we staggered to the car under the load of 2 rolling suitcases, and 4 bags of books. We all went over budget, but it was (and will be) worth it.
Here we are with our stash.
Next year's sale is 2/12-13, mark your calendars and I'll see you there! 
