Spend a “Second Saturday” at a Landis Arboretum Used Book Sale

More than 70 years ago, Fred Lape trans­formed his family’s Oak Nose Farm into the Lan­dis Arbore­tum and a haven for artists with the help of his friend George Lan­dis and oth­ers. As one might expect, books – includ­ing Lape’s col­lec­tions of poet­ry – fueled their love of the arts. 

If you’ve been to the Arbore­tum for a soli­tary hike, fam­i­ly pic­nic, or a Full Moon con­cert, you may have yet to dis­cov­er our used book store, hous­ing an impres­sive range of yesterday’s clas­sics and con­tem­po­rary works, fic­tion and non-fic­tion, in any num­ber of cat­e­gories. Locat­ed in our his­toric Barn beyond the col­or­ful quilt mur­al and the sun­di­al, the Book Store had been only open dur­ing spe­cial events like our plant sales – until the sum­mer of 2021.

Our res­i­dent ​“book­ie” Sue Tri­cario estab­lished the Sec­ond Sat­ur­day Used Book Sales, from 10 AM to 2 PM, June through Octo­ber (the lat­ter, weath­er permitting). 

A small cadre of Lan­dis vol­un­teers staffed the book sales that first sum­mer, and those sec­ond Sat­ur­day sales enjoyed great suc­cess, fol­lowed by anoth­er excel­lent turnout this year. Word has spread: once again Lan­dis is a des­ti­na­tion – for booklovers. 

We attract repeat cus­tomers like Heather and her son Ben from Alta­mont. They were joined by Grand­ma Lin­da who post­ed on our Face­book page: ​“After buy­ing books we went hik­ing on the trails for an hour. So much fun.” 

It’s a great out­ing for fam­i­lies. Amber and M.J. drove over from Rot­ter­dam after dis­cov­er­ing that Lan­dis was vot­ed The # 1 Place to Take Kids in the Cap­i­tal Region by read­ers of the Kid​sOutAnd​About​.com web­site. M.J. did a thor­ough search of our shelves and box­es, and both moth­er and son were pleased to go home with the books of their choice.

We also had vis­i­tors who came because they saw our local sig­nage, online post­ings, or an open door as they hiked the Arboretum’s trails or checked out the new Shan­ti Vun Med­i­ta­tion Gar­den, a short stroll from the Barn. Some, like Jim from the Sarato­ga area, sport­ed cam­eras for bird­ing or tak­ing some pho­tos of the spec­tac­u­lar Lan­dis scenery.

All our books are acquired through the gen­er­ous dona­tions of our Arbore­tum mem­bers and friends. Books of all gen­res, gar­den­ing, of course, but also many oth­ers, includ­ing children’s books, soft and hard cov­ers, schol­ar­ly tomes from the 1800’s, to yesterday’s garage sale finds. Nov­els, field guides, cook­books, pre-YouTube how-to books. The prover­bial ​“some­thing for every­one”. Rich and Chris­tine, pro­pri­etors of Sto­ried Café in Sco­tia, spent the bet­ter part of the after­noon choos­ing a fine selec­tion of vin­tage and oth­er titles for the care­ful­ly curat­ed shelves at their shop. ​“It’s a trea­sure hunt,” Rich not­ed, ​“It’s a good selec­tion but not overwhelming…there’s a sec­tion for everything…just enough”. Some­times the book tells its own sto­ry, through a note left inside or an inscrip­tion to a dear friend. ​“We found three books by the same author giv­en as a Christ­mas gift,“ Chris­tine remarked.

Just as the books come in by dona­tion, all sales are, in turn, by dona­tion. Give what you can to help our non-prof­it Arbore­tum con­tin­ue to serve you and your fam­i­ly, now and in the future. All in the spir­it of bib­lio­philes like our founder, Fred Lape.

After you’ve select­ed your books, be sure to step behind the Barn and com­plete your own trans­for­ma­tion into a monarch but­ter­fly or a mighty stag by vis­it­ing our pho­to ops, per­fect for fam­i­lies. If you wish, post your pic­tures on our web­site or Face­book page.

Check below to see some of our friends who came to the Sec­ond Sat­ur­day Book Sales this year. We hope you’ll be among our vis­i­tors next year!

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