Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 1, 1995 TAG: 9506010033
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOUNT CRAWFORD LENGTH: Medium
Today, in its 25th anniversary year, the fair has 25,000 square feet of space - in buildings built for books and auctions, not cows and horses. The fair's owners say they carry a half million new books at deep discounts off retail - and, on a good weekend, as many as 10,000 customers will park in the gravel lot and the surrounding cow field and come in to browse and buy.
Co-owner Kathryn Evans says her family never expected the fair would get this big. Now she and her full-time staff of six - including two of her children - work year-round to put on 10 weekend book fairs a year. She adds more workers - including two more of her kids - to actually put on the weekend fairs, stocking the shelves and running the 22 cash registers.
"It's sorta like you get to running and you can't stop," Evans says. "Or like a snowball going downhill and it keeps collecting more and more snow."
How did a book fair in a rural community far from the big cities get to be such an event?
Part of it is that the books are fairly cheap - the fair claims most books are marked down by 60 percent to 90 percent.
Last weekend you could get H.A. Rey's "Curious George Rides a Bike" in paperback for $1.75; Peter Matthiessen's "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse" in large paperback format for $2.99; and Peter D. Kramer's 1993 bestseller, "Listening to Prozac," in hard cover for $5.75.
In the past many of the discounted books were damaged or came without dust covers, but these days most are simply books that had been returned to publishers from retail stores. Publishers sell the fair big bins filled with a hodge-podge of books.
Three other reasons for the fair's popularity: location, location, location. It's on Interstate 81, within two hours of Roanoke, Richmond, and Washington, D.C., and closer still to the university towns of Harrisonburg and Charlottesville. Evans said people come from as far away as Pennsylvania and North Carolina and she even has someone from Canada on her mailing list.
The selection of books varies depending on what sorts of deals the fair gets from its suppliers, but usually there's heavy emphasis on self-help guides, history, fiction, cookbooks and children's books.
Jacqueline Brice-Finch has been coming to the fair for five years. "The first time I came, I got ill, because it was just too much," she says. The selection and the prices bowled her over. She spent more than $200 that time. "And that was saying: OK, you have to put of lot of this back."
Now Brice-Finch, who teaches literature at James Madison University, comes at least four times a year and spends perhaps $50 a trip.
She came last Saturday, bought a box-full of books and reported via long-distance phone to her friends about what was available: "OK, I went to the book fair and they have this, this and this."
She returned Sunday to fill their book orders.
Carroll and Nina Goodridge of Bridgewater are also loyal customers. They come "every time it's open, because I'm a bookaholic," said Caroll Goodridge, a retired United Methodist pastor.
"There are books here that are on the New York Times bestseller list this week," he said. "You can get a book that's $25 in the store for $6.50. And I'm for that - I'm 100 percent for that."
The Green Valley book sale grew from eight weekends last year to 10 this year, and Evans expects it may add a few more three-day weekends or keep the fair open on weekdays between back-to-back weekend fairs.
In the old days, she recalls, "we didn't have a schedule. When we had enough books together, we just did it."
Evans' then-husband, Leighton, an auctioneer, had an interest in Civil War history books. They would sometimes set up tables and sell used books at flea markets. He approached some book dealers about putting on a fair, but they told him there wasn't enough interest in books in the area to justify it.
So they put on their own fair, in a barn at their 110-acre farm two miles east of Mount Crawford.
The fair grew, the family renovated the basement of the barn and put in book shelves and later built a seperate auction/book building. In 1990, they built a two-floor book gallery.
That's when the book fair really took off, Kathryn Evans says. Now she estimates that a typical weekend will draw 5,000 to 10,000 customers for a total of perhaps 70,000 a year.
Her ex-husband, who is still co-owner, retired from the fair last year, and the fair no longer sells used books.
With so many people buying so many books, Kathryn Evans says it's a good sign that people still love books. "It's not true that everybody's just watching TV - unless they don't read them."
by CNB