The pop-up book “Circus: A Gala Show” (1979) can be...

The pop-up book “Circus: A Gala Show” (1979) can be bought at the Friends of the Center Moriches Library vintage and antique book sale. Credit: Kathy Kleinpeter

Kathy Kleinpeter loves nothing better than giving old books a new shelf life, and next weekend she'll be working overtime on that mission.

She and other members of the Friends of the Center Moriches Library will host a vintage, antique and premium book sale on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 featuring more than 1,500 books as well as DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Proceeds from the sale will go toward funding programs at the library.

All of the items have been donated by the public, Kleinpeter said. Among the books up for grabs are "Life on the Circuit With Lincoln," an 1892 volume by Henry C, Whitney that looks at Abraham Lincoln's years as a lawyer; John Burroughs' "Nature Writings" (1904), "Journal of the American Irish Historical Society, Vol. VIII" (1908), and the children's pop-up "International Circus: A Gala Show" (1979).

The sale will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Jan. 31 and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 1 at the library, 235 Main St. in Center Moriches. All transactions are cash only. For more details, go to centermoricheslibrary.org.

This is the second year for the sale, which last year took in $2,100, Kleinpeter said. And while she loves being able to find new homes for treasured books through the sale, even more rewarding is when she can reunite books with their original owners.

"Sometimes I have been able to find the homes they originated from and returned them." she said. Among those were a Bible from the 1920s from the Rugby Congregational Church in Brooklyn and two atlases of the Cherokee Plantation in South Carolina that had belonged to Caroline Coe of the Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay.

"It's always a pleasure to reunite the tomes where they originated," Kleinpeter said.

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