Great Ending To Big Book Sale

Illawarra Mercury

Monday April 21, 2008

By JODIE MINUS

IT was finished as quickly as the last Harry Potter book on a rainy weekend.

Lifeline's Big Book Fair attracted a record crowd of 5086 people who took home about 15,000 books, raising more than $70,000 for the charity in just three days.

Visual arts books were the big sellers this year, followed closely by science fiction, fantasy, war and military, while gardening books rounded out the top five genres.

Lifeline South Coast director Grahame Gould said the most expensive book sold was a $40 military history tome, while the greatest amount spent was $1300, by Newtown's second-hand book king Bob Gould.

But despite the fact that 15,000 books were gobbled up over the weekend, Grahame Gould said the Lifeline trucks did not leave Kembla Grange Racecourse empty.

"We had 13,000 books donated by the community so we are already ready for another big book fair," Mr Gould said.

"I counted all those books, but it is not that hard because we average about 20 books per box, and count the boxes.

"The support we have had from the public in donating books is much stronger than any year before. The public have really got behind us."

The money raised will be used to fund Lifeline South Coast's 24-hour telephone counselling services, which takes almost 50 calls a day, or about 13,000 calls every year.

"We save lives regularly with the telephone counselling service and we help people move on with life all the time," Mr Gould said.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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