Sometimes I wish I liked doing yarn arts: I would love the black-and-white mittens!
I photographed these vintage knitting magazines for the thrift store's social media.
Does it seem like we get a ton of cool donations?
In reality, (I think I've said before), something like 60 percent are run of the mill--I mean, recognizable, more or less saleable books:
(Isabel Allende to Virginia Woolf;
Stephen Ambrose to Howard Zinn;
Mayo Clinic to Van Gogh);
20 percent, "just nope":
(Bill O'Reilly, most Catholica, old million-copy bestsellers along the lines of Shoes of the Fisherman & I'm OK, You're OK);
10 percent Cool Old Books & Things :
(vintage Penguins, pulp sci-fi, beat-up leather-bound books, fun ephemera, the very occasional valuable first edition);
5 percent utter garbage:
(moldy, dog-chewn, or downright creepy topics)
But I can't keep up with photographing all the cool stuff, because even in books that get recycled, there might be a bookplate or an inscription.