As anyone with a killer VHS collection will tell you, between technological innovation and cultural obsolescence there are bargains. Significant bargains. Compound that with the fact that it's the new year and everyone's restocking their inventories and you get the January sale at the Title Wave Used Bookstore (216 NE Knott). Title Wave is a retired-lady-volunteer-run store where rarely circulated Multnomah County Library books are put to pasture. It's Boca Raton with smaller print.
Every day in January, a new category is 55% off (except for a few buy-two-get-one-free days). Here are some of my favorites:
On sale the 11th: all books about movies and actors; 12th: everything in a language other than english; 21st: anything between 900 and 999 on the Dewey Decimal System (that's history, geography and biography); 25th: sports books; 29th: graphic novels (and manga).
- If these walls could talk, they would say "highly flammable."
The collection, including 20,000+ pieces of media, is good in some areas and totally odd in others. If you're looking for strange and wonderful books that you didn't know you wanted, this is your place. Yesterday, I bought a biography of Noël Coward ($2) that is as cumbersome as a video box set of Roots. I read it in bed and it doubles as a night table. I also got a statistics reference ($2) and a picture book about great movies ($1). Other highlights are the sizable stock of travel guides just a little bit out of date (e.g. a 2007 Lonely Planet of India for $3) and a selection of DVDs and CDs that can only be described as random.
Go on, start stockpiling. Make the Unabomber's eyes tear up.
