Wading the knickknacks, gewgaws and tchotchkes at the Cannery Row Antique Mall's first annual book sale.

Maybe you recall these words by John Steinbeck, one of the most famous opening lines to a novel: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream."

Awesome. The novel is, of course, Cannery Row. And the next line is less poetic and more descriptive: "Cannery Row is the gathered and the scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants, and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses."

That's definitely not an apt description of the Cannery Row of today. But there are pockets, lots, remnants, to be sure, of that industrious and scrappy heyday.

The Cannery Row Antique Mall, for instance, is an 88-year-old, 20,000 square-foot relic from the cannery days. The conveyor belt that used to move crates of canning supplies between its two floors is still there.

For the last 18 years it's been the lauded retail home to a consortium of about 100 antique dealers. A person could get lost in the time warp that its jam-packed aisles present.

So when they assembled their first annual book sale, happening 10am-5:30pm this Thursday and Friday—including stashes of rare, old and valuable books—it seemed a good time to revisit the historical holdover, the pastiche profuseness, the building of bounty, the museum-esque mishmash.

"Dealers have access to so many fabulous books that they gather all through the year," says Marjorie Snow, marketing director.

Tables of books priced $1-$10 are crammed on tables in an upstairs corner; rarer books can be found at the various booths and nooks of different dealers, so some hunting is required. Complimentary root beer floats will reward those efforts.

Author signings take place both days:

At 2pm Thursday, Carmel historian and mystery novel author Kathryn Gualtieri signs The Missing Bohemian. The next day, Frank DiPaola, a former cop and actor, signs From Hell to Hail Mary at 11am. At 2pm, Phil Bowhay, who's apparently written about Pacific Grove's Good Ole Days, signs What Steinbeck Left Out.

Posted here are some pictures to serve as a preview of the book sale, and to stoke the thirst for the book hunt.

Cannery Row Antique Mall's First Annual Book Sale 10am-5:30pm Thu-Fri at 471 Wave St., Monterey. Free to attend. 655-0264, www.CanneryRowAntiqueMall.com.