Book Sale: 250,000 Tomes to Attract Hordes of Serious Shoppers

It's a literary stampeeeeede!

Every year, Black Friday stories about hapless store clerks being impressed into working ghastly hours and expiring beneath the feet of rapacious shoppers make one question the state of humanity.

If only there was a story about being trampled that made us feel good about society. In fact, there may yet be.

First and foremost -- no one has been trampled. But the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library's massive book sales have inspired behavior akin to that more commonly seen on, say, Supermarket Sweep or exhibitions of the Coca-Cola Free West put on in old East Berlin.

So, starting Tuesday and stretching to Sunday at Fort Mason, literary shoppers are invited to participate in the most high-minded stampede this city has ever seen. More than 250,000 "books, DVDs, CDs, vinyl, books on tape" and other charmingly antiquated forms of media are up for grabs, with nothing priced higher than $3.