This Thursday, nearly 15,000 people will queue up outside the Miami-Dade Main Library. Whats with this sudden surge in literacy? After all, Miami was recently ranked the ninth dumbest city in America an honor partially based on our citys fledging book sales. Yet every year, the 305s voracious readers all 15,000 of them line up to be the first at the librarys annual Book Sale. For the past 10 years, thousands of donated books, DVDs, and even video games are sold at blow-out prices. You can score current titles such as Jay-Zs Decoded and the latest from Stieg Larsson as well as rare finds such as the first Argentine edition of The Catcher and the Rye, all for $1 to $5.
Proceeds benefit annual programs such as Summer Reading, the Art of Storytelling workshops, and International Festival. And if everyone spent a measly $10 and stocked a home library of good reads, maybe Miami could escape its reputation of being a confederacy of dunces.
Dec. 9-12, 9 a.m., 2010