In the age of Kindle, are books still popular? To the thousands of book lovers who will descend upon the Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Booksale from March 23-27, the answer is “yes.”
They come to find bargains among the more than 80,000 volumes that aresold in the five days. Among them are complete sets of Shakespeare for home library shelves, rare collectables, first editions and tens of thousands of children’s books.
The first sale took place in 1931 when Bryn Mawr alums sold books from a bicycle basket to raise scholarship funds. The following year they set up the sale at 100 Nassau St., then a car dealer, and sold books for 10 to50 cents. Today’s sale offers books at an average of $1 to $2 each.
Donations, collected all year, range from a few volumes to entire private libraries from the estates of Princeton-area scholars as well as from the general community. Patrons annually come from as far away as Maine and Virginia.
The Bryn Mawr-Wellesley Booksale raises college scholarship funds for young women from the greater Princeton area.
In the 80 years it has been in operation, the sale has raised more than $2 million money that goes directly to support the educations of young women in the region such as the current Wellesley College recipient, Samantha Grossmith of Princeton Junction, a senior majoring in cognitive linguistic sciencewith a concentration in psychology. Samantha has received direct support from the sale throughout her college career.
Another reason for shopper enthusiasm is the chance to find unusual and collectible books among the tens of thousands of low-priced volumes.
The sales will be held at Princeton Day School, 650 The Great Road, Princeton.

