Chris Malone, who is fairly new to the Upper Valley, staffs the Quechee Health Club desk on weekday afternoons. Norm Spector, a Quechee resident and a regular at the Health Club, told Chris about the annual Five Colleges Book Sale, saying that he thought Chris and his twin seven-year-old daughters might find some great books there. When Chris appeared in the checkout line at the sale last year, both of his daughters and he each had a full shopping bag full of new treasures.
This year, beginning at 9am on Friday, April 18, the 61st Five Colleges Book Sale will open at Lebanon High School; hundreds of booklovers will flock to approximately 90,000 books that will fill the gym, cafeteria, hallways, and various classrooms. More than 60 categories of books are offered for sale, including 56 non-fiction major classifications. The sale, which has been called the largest of its type in New England, will run Friday through Sunday, April 18 to April 20: 9-5 Friday & Saturday and 9-3 Sunday. By the end of Sunday’s half-price day, about 3,000 people will have visited, coming from throughout the Upper Valley and beyond. Profits from the book sale fund scholarships for students from Vermont and New Hampshire; last year, the sale distributed over $62,000 to scholarship funds at the Five Colleges.
Mango, the book sale therapy dog, has been lightening spirits during the
rush before the 2024 sale. Photo courtesy of Five Colleges Book Sale
The book sale attracts families, with the children having a field day filling shopping bags with books, with prices often less than $1.00. “We go through so many books, it starts getting expensive,” Chris Malone says. “This sale is the one time a year I can tell [my daughters] Berdie and May to get as many books as they please and it carries us for months. And seeing so many old titles from my childhood is just a bonus.”
Artie Kupidlowski, a fixture in Quechee’s golf operations for over 30 years, has been a regular patron of the sports table at the sale. Artie would try to be an early bird at the sale, paging through the hundreds of sports books, looking for books signed by the author or the celebrity featured on the cover. He regularly came away with a treasure or two each year, if not from the sports table, from other non-fiction categories.
Where does the Book Sale get this massive inventory? Word is circulated via newspapers, list serves, Facebook, blogs with major circulation in the Upper Valley, the Book Sale’s website, and posters throughout the Upper Valley. Residents bring their books in boxes or sturdy bags to a local sorting center beginning in early March.
The books are unpacked by “Sorters” who dust and wipe down each book and flip the pages to remove bookmarks, notes, and other items. Some treasures turn up each year among the pages and boxes: cash, checks, keys, games, and photos. The Sorters then bring the books to a staging area: shelves labeled by book categories for transport to pricing tables for each category. Volunteer “Pricers” are assigned to each category. Pricers examine and set a price for each book using their expertise about the category and internet sources. Priced books are loaded into boxes for transport by professional movers to the sale site.
Chris Malone’s twin daughters, May and Bernadette, reading
from new books just purchased on their weekly trip
into Hanover.
How did the sale get its “Five Colleges” name? In 1962, the wife of Dartmouth’s president and four friends, all spouses of Dartmouth faculty, met at the president’s house and decided that a book sale was a good way to occupy time during mud season. The five were graduates of five colleges: Wellesley, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, and Simmons. According to Natalie Golden, current book sale chair, “Giving back to their alma maters was very important to the founders. Personally, I would not have been able to go to Wellesley College, without a scholarship. This is my way to pay that gift forward”.
Fundamental to the success of the book sale is the volunteer workforce. About half are alums from the five colleges and the rest are “friends” made up of book lovers who enjoy discussing books, believe in increasing literacy and education, or love looking for new gems to read. Volunteer leaders organize the details of the book sale throughout the year. In early March, donations start. The Day Chairs unload cars and check boxes of donations and Sorters then clean the books and place them into categories. Pricers look at each book, set a price, and move them into any subcategories. Quechee volunteer librarian, Judy Wiggin, organizes the Day Chairs and recruited Norm Spector, also of Quechee.
Norm Spector, Quechee resident and Five Colleges Book
Sale volunteer.
“My favorite part of the book sale is the sorting,” says Judy. “Hundreds of boxes of donated books arrive over the weeks before the sale. When I choose a box to take to a sorting table, I don’t know what I will find – sometimes pristine hardcover books of history, philosophy, or fiction, sometimes musty old novels from the early twentieth century, sometimes gorgeous art books…Opening each box is a treasure hunt for me.”
Norm, who started coming to the book sale ten years ago, soon found his way into volunteering and never looked back. “I was on a glide path toward retirement and finally had some time to read,” he says. “The book sale was a great opportunity to stock my bookshelves with my favorite fiction writers.”
After he inquired about volunteering and was recruited, he started as a Sorter. “I would grab a box or bag of books and pour out the contents, just like a bag of wrapped presents,” he explains. “Sometimes my favorite fiction writers were there. Other times, the boxes produced big coffee table books featuring magnificent works of art, and the history books were amazing – deep dives into American or world history about events where my knowledge was only surface deep.” As a Day Chair at the sale, Norm spent time loading heavy cartons of books onto dollies for moving into the storage site, and stacking boxes of books. “Some boxes, while still in the cars, had obviously been stored for years, and with a smile I had to reject the books as ‘not passing Norm’s smell test’,” he says.
“Cashier duties were perhaps the most fun for me,” he adds. “The lines at the cashier station enabled me to meet the customer and talk about their interests as shown by the book choices, all the while calculating the total price and running the credit card app…I enjoyed some great conversations, and despite the lines, the customers were happy because they now owned some books they obviously wanted – and at a great price.”
Judy Wiggin, Quechee Library volunteer and a longtime
Five Colleges Book Sale volunteer.
During March and early April, there will be between 12 to 35 volunteers working every day. On each sale day, 40 – 50 volunteers are needed to help patrons find their way around the sale, replenish and straighten books, and staff the checkout lines. Within the 56 major book categories, the volunteer who prices each non-fiction category sets up sub-categories, which are marked by signs. During any year, unique donations may spark the creation of a new sub-category such as “Time & Clocks” within the Science category. There is a unique category called “Oddments” that includes post cards, paper dolls, book marks, art prints, and small gift books.
Thirteen years ago, there was a major drop in the number of volunteers, but with concerted recruiting efforts, the number of volunteers increased slowly. Then the pandemic hit and the sale was not held for three years. The sale returned in 2023, but the number of returning volunteers dropped from pre-Covid levels. In recent years, members of the Hanover and Lebanon Rotary Clubs and employees of King Arthur Baking and Hypotherm have been invaluable in setting up and shutting down the sale. Natalie Golden of West Lebanon, the current chair, says “We still need many more volunteers, all are welcome, volunteer schedules are completely flexible and the work is both social and fun.” The friendships, conversations, seeing so many good books, improving literacy in the Upper Valley, and providing college scholarships makes volunteering worthwhile.
Individuals interested in becoming a volunteer should contact the book sale via email at 5collegesbooksale@gmail.com. Beginning in late February, check the website (at www.five-collegesbooksale.org) for the sorting site and any updates on the sale.
