Every Saturday Renee Lewis and her mother go to yard sales, flea markets and thrift shops all over the city - sometimes even to people's houses, when invited - to gather books.
"We take them home and clean them. If any need repairs, we repair them, then we price them and box them and pack them in the van," says Lewis, 51.
Then she goes home to Colchester County and gets up at 5 o'clock the next morning and heads to the Sackville Sunday flea market. And that's been their routine every weekend for the past 20 years (with the exception of the Sundays between Christmas and New Years, and Easter).
Now, with the future of the Sackville flea market uncertain, she isn't sure where she'll be selling her books in the future.
The Sunday flea market, currently held at Downsview Mall, is set to close at the end of the month if a new location isn’t found.
Lewis said her mother and father first started the flea market ritual years before her 20-year stint. "They were selling books and skates and hockey gear. But Dad got tired of doing the books, they were heavy, and so he let me start doing it. I got out his stock, and I had a bit of stock of my own, and I started selling out at the Windsor Country Fair."
In addition to spending her weekends immersed in buying and selling novels, Lewis also works at Dustjacket Books, a second hand book store in the lower level of the Maritime Mall on Barrington Street. She's been there for 10 years.
"My boss was a good customer and he was short staffed one day and asked me if I'd consider working for him. I said 'I'll have to come and see if I like your store.' I didn't want to work for just anybody. I came in and loved the store and how he did business."
While at the bookstore she said she wanted to learn two things: How to run a used book store and how to shop for old books.
"I knew how to shop for used pocket books, how to do contemporary fiction and best sellers. I know what to pay for an Agatha Christie and Danielle Steel, I knew what was new, I knew what was hot ... I could do all that. But I didn't know how to look at a box of really old books and go 'this one is garbage, and this one is wonderful' and I really wanted to know how to do that. He said 'okay, it's a deal.'"
Lewis says she has a great memory for remembering book titles and the authors that go with them.
It’s easy when you love what you’re doing, she said.
"We have the set-up categorized and are pretty good, although not perfect, at knowing what we do and don't have. We can usually put our hands on it quickly. That's probably what we do best. We don't often have the newest book by an author, but if you find a great author and are looking for their earlier books, you can't usually find them at the new book stores. We fill that niche."
She says if the Sackville flea market closes down, she hopes to find a new home in Sackville to sell her books.
"Sackville has always been our best market, Sackville is where our main customer base is and Sackville is where I would prefer to be. If a new flea market opens in Sackville, I'll be there with bells on."
She has high hopes that will happen, but if it doesn't, she says she'll set up at the Harbourview weekend market in Dartmouth (Canal Street in the old Value Village building) until a Sackville market opens.
lmckay@hfxnews.ca
