It was organised chaos in South Dunedin yesterday as book-lovers flocked to get in first to the Regent Theatre 24 Hour Book Sale.
The annual book sale opened its doors at 10am, and by 11am the Edgar Centre was packed to the rafters with bookworms after a good deal.
Ms Wigley said they were looking for "children’s books, non-fiction, things for years 2 and 3, and some more for the after-school care they have there".
"Their library’s looking a bit tired and the kids are getting a little bored of the books, so here we are."
"He’s slowly going through the stack."
Slowly sifting through the foreign languages section was Dunedin resident Ana van Os, who was looking for her next challenge in her goal to learn Japanese.
Ms van Os had formally been studying Japanese for three years, but had tinkered around with it for many years before that.
"Last year, I bought a bunch of Japanese books here, but I realised I could only sort of read them, but it was such slow going, it was a lot of looking up difficult Kanji [Chinese characters used in the writing of Japanese]."
"I got all of these in the first two minutes when I walked through the door.
"I figured out where they were kept last year and made a beeline straight to them."
"It’s so busy here, my car is parked about two miles away, if I spot someone I know I may bother them for a lift.
"But this event here is great value for money and these books never age — they’re a part of history."
