Friday, June 24, 2011

Booksale!




I know many authors think that selling books second-hand is selling them (the authors) cheap, but it may also have a beneficial effect; introducing readers to new authors (who then go out and buy more by the same person).

Authors aside, we are readers. We (I speak for myself for those people who read this who like reading books, if you don't, please ignore this post. In fact if you don't, you probably aren't reading!) like to read books!

In clearing my house ready for a move, I had two bagfulls of books (having already taken several loads to the local charity shop) and thought I would sell them at work. Then a thought occurred to me - to sell them for charity.

I put a note round at my employers and not only did I advertise the sale, but I had more contributions of books! So at lunchtime today I spent an hour and a half in a meeting room surrounded by books: including the true story of a call girl and XML programming (in Chinese). So plenty of variety!

I am delighted to say that my kind colleagues helped me raise over £100 for Alzheimer's Research UK. Oh, and I picked up a few books for myself.


But the most important part of the exercise was the personal stories I heard, and of how Alzheimer's has touched so many people's lives. The stories were, of course, not happy ones. Suffering is part of the human condition. But wouldn't it be nice if we could, in time, actually remove this one from the list?


I know there are many good causes out there, and I have indeed shown my support for conservation well beyond my employment in that area. However, if you have five minutes and even just five pounds, your support could make a tremendous difference to the long term solution for curing dementia.

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