YSaC, Vol. 1250: Bertrand Russell has a yard sale
2012 May 11
2000+ books
Giving away 2,000+ books as I am done reading books. Come and take what you want. 1st come 1st get. Bring a tote. Books are on diverse topics, fiction and non. Many quality titles. Also please no bookish people, as I am also done with bookish people. If you reply I’ll send a short quiz question to weed out bookish people. Answer correctly and I’ll give the address to free books. Thank you.
Here’s the quiz question:
“Do you like books?”
1. Yes – Sorry, you are a “bookish person,” and can not have books.
2. No – Sorry, you do not like books, and can not have books.
Why am I somehow certain that the books on offer include titles by Franz Kafka, George Orwell, and Joseph Heller?
Thanks for the link, Peter!
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Because neither one is made of cheese.
Wait a damn minute. Are you saying my cheese-desk is a lie?!
Yes!
*pointing* HA! HA! “spider pants!”
Trap door.
Um. Um. Nevermore?
We’ve successfully been weeded!
😀
420!
Yes, from that little-known sequel: Fahrenheit 420**
**The point at which, if you’ve smoked enough weed, that books become incomprehensible.
“Because they both come with inky quills.” – Connor Freff Cochran
The field of Books has lost a very insightful scholar today.
There are only two kinds of books in the w0rld:
Books with explicit sex scenes and books without explicit sex scenes.
I bet a lot more kids would pay attention in school if textbooks were more like the other kind.
The Field of Books:
If You Write Them, They Will Come!
The Field of Books 2: Electric Bookaloo –
If You Put Boobs In It, It Will Become A Bestseller!
If you put BDSM into it, it will become a bestseller that women don’t care is poorly written.
Some women, Mudsy. Just some.
I have this mental image that some majority of the titles are “self help” and “for dummies” with a healthy dollop of rags-to-riches inspirational titles–all of which have been donated to Spark’ by family, friends, passers-by, all in an effort to get Spark’ a clue.
And it worked! He finally learned to think for himself, instead of paying attention to the research and wisdom of others.
Wonder what a first editions of “Common Sense for Dummies” in pristine, unopened, condition goes for . . . ?
Very good market value I reckon. Especially the leather-bound edition.
Hmmm (coffee, bless’d coffee starting to kick in) . . .
I have about 2000 books, and easily that again in paper-back fiction. But, that’s “on purpose”; a result of deliberate choice spanning across about four decades.
So, how a body amasses a couple thousand tomes as passing fancy, or something of a whim is boggling me.
Oh well, maybe it will make sense on my daily 45 mile drive (if the sparkii do not kill me on the road, en route–just too many “compensating” with expensive vehicles without matching skills).
Maybe he had a serious booking problem and is finally ready to quit.
“Hi, I’m Sparky, and I’m a bookish person.”
“Hi, Sparky.”
“Hi. Over the years, I’ve read thousands of books. I currently own over 2,000 of them. Most mornings, I can’t get out of bed without looking at a book first. I have a book in front of me when I eat breakfast. I have a book in the bathroom. Sometimes I read books during smoke breaks at work. I didn’t know where to turn, so I came here.”
For a second there I thought you were talking about me and I panicked a little because I thought I might be a Sparky, but then I remembered that I quit smoking. What a relief.
Right? My first thought was “Is D calling me Sparky?” followed by “Oh wait, I don’t smoke.”
*Lola said, WHAAAAAT?*
Someone… grab the birdseed. We’re gonna need a lot of it !
FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
*gets coat*
Leave the flask!
There, all better now! Lola, you can come back now!
I was front ended today right after seeing an Ascender and thinking I wouldn’t want to be followed by one of those because I don’t want to be ass ended. Someone didn’t like where she was so she backed into me. My vehicle was in park at the time.
That sucks. Hope they had insurance, cause in my neck of the state, they usually don’t…. it’s all aggressive/defensive driving around here.
Two years ago… Christmas Eve, lady drove her suburban straight into my SUV. I won, but only because I was already on the brakes. She, of course, had a suspended license, no insurance and two kids that weren’t buckled in and ended up with scrapes and bruises. That was sucky.
If thou wouldst have my books for free,
Then thou must answer questions three,
That I may weed out bookish folk
And become bookless ere I croak.
Squee!! But please tell me one of the questions involves coconuts and swallows and air-speed velocity.
Blue…no green. AAARRG!
Silly book-o-philes don’t even know what their favorite color is.
*snort* “Swallows.” Heh heh.
Sorry. That’s all I’ve had time to come up with today.
Option 3: I just want a copy of that evil Harry Potter to burn in front of the youth group.
Oops…
That must be an Australian posting.
Try flushing it and see if it goes clockwise or counterclockwise.
It’s actually an antidoesntmatter post, held up by dork energy.
dork energy = m.c. hammer²
It’s not fair. There was finally time.
Best episode of Twilight Zone ever.
Absolutely.
Damn straight.
One of those 2,000 books … To Serve Man … it’s a cookbook!
2000 books? Wow, I could feed Tasty for like 6 months with that!
He told me he wants to be called Dinner.
8)
Dinner can be his middle name.
It’s gonna be one of them ‘fainting’ varieties, too. 8)
Any one else need a goat?
I think those are either Victorian goats or Gone With The Wind goats.
* I do declare, I feel a touch of the vapors…
According to this laughably out-of-date medical book, “the vapors” are a form of female hysteria best treated by a “pelvic massage” that lasts until the patient experiences a “hysterical paroxysm”.
Where’s Dr. McHottiepants when you need him?
Pelvic massage! If only there was a mechanical device that ran on electricity to aid sufferers of ‘the vapors and hysterics’. Something in a variety of colors and textures…..
I can give you a link if you’re interested. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer. 😉
Okay, every time I read that comment and look at your Mr. Potatohead avatar I get the giggles.
And thanks to Rule 34, *that* now exists.
I wonder what he’ll read now that he’s done reading books. Billboards? Gang graffiti? Nutrition labels of candy wrappers he finds on the ground?
Or Sparky gouged out his eyes after reading Shades of Grey and will be switching to Braille.
Still counts as reading.
*dials*
Me “Hello, Sparky I’m calling about the books.”
Sparky “Yes, are you bookish?”
Me “nope.”
Sparky “You’ll have to convince me you aren’t bookish, what would you do with the books?”
Me “I would throw one away and party like it’s1999.”
Sparky “SOLD!”
*groan*
Consider yourself to have just been punched in the face by Prince.
Purple pain, purple pain
*eyes Hammy suspiciously*
Good joke.
For an attempted murderer.
I’ve never tempted anyone 🙁
I was prepping the new garden area today. You’d be surprised how hard it is to do this. Question them all you will, they just drop roots again and chat intelligently about this or that. Except the Oprah book club types. I may have to call in a serious professional to get those ninnies out.
I am curious as to Sparky’s impetus for completely giving up on reading books. I am also curious as to why he doesn’t want to give the books to “bookish people,” who might actually want to read them. What interest does he think non-bookish people would have? Kindling? A shim under a wobbly table leg? Emergency TP when the house plumbing goes out and you have to resort to the two-holer out by the barn?
Theory: Sparky (or Sparkina) had their heart broken by a bookish person, and has decided, by way of consolation/revenge/sulking/etc., to eschew books, and this ad is the result.
Sounds like the plot for the 5th Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
“They’re all down in Davey Jones’ (Hey, hey we’re the Monkees!) locker.”
ps: you just wrote that Lola so you could flaunt the bookish word eschew all around. Gesundheit!
One must then wonder if these books actually belong to Sparky.
Oh, I’m sure they do…they just all star a young couple named Dick and Jane. I believe they also have a dog, named Spot.
And a rather hard-to-locate young man named Waldo.
Waldo’s Odyssey by Homer is kept right up next to Herodotus and The Pokey Little Puppy in Troy section of my bookish bookcase.
And they haven’t been colored in (too much). That’s how you know they are quality.
Hmm, perhaps the cult Spark’ follows finds books and bookishness to be blasphemy.
Hmmm, I read somewhere that Scientologists will buy multiple copies of Dianetics just to keep it on the bestsellers’ list. Maybe Sparky recently converted to a different faith and wants to get rid of his copies.
I can’t help but wonder what compels a person to be “done reading books” and “done with bookish people”. I might have to write a tale to justify that. Maybe after breakfast.
Every time Sparky opened a book, his bookish roommate would walk up and punch him hard in the face.
After a while, the negative reinforcement began to take its toll.
Dear Over It:
I have read with interest your ad for books, and ask you to please hear me out on the concept of bookish vs. non-bookish recipients for what I am sure is a fine collection.
Should you give the books away only to a fellow non-bookish person, you run the sizable risk of that person then distributing the books in small groups to his or her family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, door to door salesmen, etc. Some of these books may, I fear, inspire these previously non-bookish people to develop a newly-discovered love for literature. You may soon discover that your well-thought-out plan to distribute books only to non-bookish people has, in fact, CREATED more bookish people.
If, on the other hand, you were to consider releasing your collection into a bibliophile (bookish person, or as we like to call ourselves, Reader)’s keeping, I believe you would find the benefits abundant and surprising. As am admittedly bookish person (Reader) myself, I find that I am forced, by cruel vagaries of fate, to occasionally leave my house to purchase more books when I can’t find anything reasonably priced on my e-reader.
Worse yet, I have to have what is called a “job” (so many of my paper-and-ink-construct friends have never been burdened with such woe!) to be able to afford to buy my books.
If you were to graciously reconsider the “no bookish people” terms of your listing, I would happily take the books off your hands. (I would at no time subject you to any discussion about books, authors, themes, tropes, or any other book-related issues that might offend you.) At that point, you could go about your daily business with the calm and certain knowledge that you have singlehandedly removed at least one Reader from the streets of your fair neighborhood for at LEAST a week.
Furthermore, since, at a volume of 2000 items, some of the books would possibly not be to my liking, I would in turn distribute them to my own Reader friends. We would all then be free to huddle for days on end in our lounges, dens, easy chairs, beds, or picture windows and do nothing but read for days or even weeks on end.
Think of it, dear Craigslister! YOU could be responsible for a significant decline in the number of Readers wandering the streets of your fair city – we would all be too absorbed in our windfalls to leave the house for even so much as a roll of toilet paper (surely among the 2000 must lurk one or two books that even the staunchest of Readers would find no use for other than to rip out an occasional page or two). No more readers in the supermarket, the mall, the restaurants, the park, the coffee houses – your fellow non-Readers might even nominate you for some sort of reward.
Begging you to reconsider because it’s 8:15 AM and I am already on page 178 of a 300 page book I downloaded last night at 10 PM and it’s going to be a long day,
A non-threatening Reader
Youll scar him away wit al those floury pros!
Damn bookish persen, acting al smert bye using alot of words. Think your bettr then we?!
Taco! It’s “better ‘n us’n”…sheesh, doan go gittin yerself kilt cuz you doan talk good werds.
Have we considered that Spark’s 2000 books are all Watchtowers?
And, having expended sparkii rationation, has equated JW to “bookish”
(1. Deys gotz books;
2. theys from ish;
3. ????;
4. Dem iz bookish, QED (who is Kwed, anyways?))
Iffin yuze doan gib’n’em no books, ’em Bookish kaint gib yu no moar–Duh!
“If you reply I’ll send a short quiz question to weed out bookish people.”
1. What did Edgar Allen Poe write about?
A. Welfare and poe people.
2.What was Moby Dick about?
A. I’m pretty sure that’s pornography.
3.What do you know about the Canterbury Tales?
A. The My Little Pony Movie was based off that book.
4.Name a book by George Orwell.
A. War of the Worlds.
5. What is the first word in the Dictioinary?
A. The.
6. Who wrote MacBeth?
A. MacKiss?
7.Who is your favorite poet?
A. Dr. Seuss.
8. What was Oliver Twist about?
A. Dancing.
9. What kind of books did Robert Asprin write?
A. Medical.
10. If I give you these books, what will you do with them?
A. Ummm, ummm… read?
Get your bookish self off my property!
Being from Book, I can tell you that we prefer “Bookite” to “Bookish.”
Just don’t call them “Bookies.” Some people get offended by that. (Others, however, will take your money.)
I would have leaned more toward calling them Bookanians.
Is that like people from Naboo should really be called Naboobians?
You’re a quick learner.
Is Sparky prejudiced only against the bookish? What about bluish people? They also have sects appeal.
(Classic line from Yellow Submarine: “Are you bluish? You don’t look bluish.”) — an example from the Brutish Empire.
2000 books = 2 kilo reading material
I come here not to praise Books
But to bury Books.
For Bookish is not an honorable man.
To Book or not to Book,
That is the Question.
Whether ’tis Barnes & Nobler
Or Hastings for the bookish;
To suffer the slings and arrows
Of outrageous quizzing
By simple sparkii
Or to lay down forever
With a Tome, perchance to Dream . . .
2b || !2b
As Sammy Davis Jr. would say, “2b 2b doo!”
*rutt row*
Scooby Doo saying waffle:
rofl
Are there any public libraries that have been burgled recently? losing, say, 2000 books – fict and non? so what do you do? give them away to people who are too stupid to notice the lending page in the front? this Sparky intrigues me … and that’s not a phrase I ever expected to write!
“Many quality titles.”
I read that as titties at first. Hehe. Colds are sort of kinda fun except not at all, really, goshdarnit why in Jupiter’s name did we have to run out of tissues.
Horray! I just posted my first craigslist ad, and all by myself too.
PostingID: 3010538174
Give me a Sparkness rating.
Depends on what you are selling for free, and are there pictures?
I was booking down the highway.
I was speeding, what can I say?
My teenage years, so everything was cool.
Took a curve without any fear.
Both lanes occupied by two deer.
How could fate have treated me so cruel?
I did not panick on that curve.
Barely had I the time to swerve.
Between the deer and I, we had our duel.
I missed them both, went in between.
My driving skills I thought were keen.
Young and dumb? I was nobody’s fool.
Afterwards, I pondered my luck,
my booking and my wav’ring pluck.
My conclusion came, it was a jewel.
Now I motor much more sane.
Bookish people are my bane.
You book down the highway, you’re a tool.
CJ and Ralph, you are free to go but please leave the books in the box this time. 8)
Punchity Punch Punch!
Good Morning, Dewey!