One thousand banana boxes, 18 kilograms or 100 bananas in each – that's a lot of bananas, a lot of daiquiris.

But this isn't about bananas. It's about books.

And the 1000 sturdy banana boxes were full of the works of Lee Child, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Dean Koontz and Stieg Larsson and the like.

And that was just the popular fiction writers. There was also a stack of meaty, serious, non-fiction and specialty books, banana boxes of them… the genres men apparently like to bury themselves in.

Now Tauranga Harbour City Lions are gearing up for another annual book sale at Tauranga Race Course. And they need to fill those banana boxes again.

The five-month book sale cycle starts again right now. Books and jigsaws for the sale can be dropped off at Harvey Norman in Cameron Road, BedPost in Tauriko, Wet & Forget at the Bay Central Shopping Centre in Chapel Street, Countdown at Bethlehem Town Centre, and Bunnings DIY at Jean Batten Drive in Mt Maunganui. Please no magazines or encyclopaedias. Enquiries to: 021 064 5360.

Lion Christine Currie says men love the non-fiction. It's just an observation. They come to the sale one day and be back the next day.

'Then they will ring a week after the fair, a week after we have cleaned up, and ask if we remember a particular book on a particular aircraft – ‘I wish I had bought it, it was only $2, do you still have it? Could you get it for me?”

Probably not!

But there's sure to be another book on another ‘particular aircraft' on the tables at the next book sale on November 10, 11 and 12.

And that book will probably have been thumbed through by Hamish Purdon.

He's not a Lion, more a drone, a worker bee in the hive that is the Tauranga Harbour City Lions book sale. His metaphor. He enjoys a book, a good informed read.

He's in the middle of 'Sparks of Genius” at the moment – a self-help book on the thinking tools employed by history's greatest creative minds like Einstein, Jane Goodall, Mozart and Virginian Woolf.

And twice a week, for five months of the year, and for the past three or four years, Hamish has contributed to the Lions book sale – helping collect and process the donated books, the ‘honey' from the hive.

That's how the fundraiser rolls. People pitching in.

'Tauranga is a particularly generous community, the way it donates books,” says Hamish.

And it means books are going round again, not just read once and shelved. The books keep giving and raise money for worthwhile causes on the journey.

'I have always liked a book, checking to see if it's worth a read.

'You're dealing with a lot of books at the sale and so if something grabs your attention while you are processing them, you are allowed to look and enjoy.

'That's part of it I reckon.”

Make Hamish's day – clear the cellar, the attic, the garage of all those books.

Put them back in circulation for the Tauranga Harbour City Lions Book Sale.

Books and jigsaws for the sale can be dropped off at Harvey Norman in Cameron Road, BedPost in Tauriko, Wet & Forget at the Bay Central Shopping Centre in Chapel Street, Countdown at Bethlehem Town Centre, and Bunnings DIY at Jean Batten Drive in Mt Maunganui. Please no magazines or encyclopaedias. Enquiries to: 021 064 5360.