JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Susan Keith (left) and Dorothy Domermuth prepare for the Y Book Fair at the YMCA at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.

BLACKSBURG -- Cookbooks. Children's books. Fiction. History books.

Starting Friday, the YMCA will hold its Y Book Fair featuring more than 10,000 books, as well as music from the Kitchen Kettle Band and appearances from local authors Judith Clarke, Cece Bell and Jane Hellman.

About 40 volunteers who call themselves the BookEnds have spent months sorting through thousands of books to prepare for the fifth annual sale, which raised about $22,000 for the YMCA last year, said Sandy Bosworth, the fair's coordinator.

"We start January 1st sorting books," Bosworth said.

"Ha! If we started January 1st, we'd never get done," said Mary Britt, a BookEnds member. "We start the day after" the last sale.

"Well, that's probably true," Bosworth agreed.

Organizers brought in local authors last year and music this year to make the sale more of an event, Britt said.

Each author has a table and will be available to answer questions or sign copies of their books, said Judy Clarke, author of "Mother Tough Wrote the Book" and "That's All She Wrote" about being a single mother.

"I'm all for anything that has to do for promoting reading an actual book as opposed to reading online," Clarke said. "When I go to these things I tend to buy more books than I sell because I like to support the local economy."

The YMCA Thrift Store has books for sale year-round, but the books that are the most general interest or special are saved for the sale, Britt said.

"It's remarkable how many first edition or signed copies we get," Britt said.

BookEnds members go through a one-day training to learn how to categorize books, how to tell whether something is a real first edition and how to price each book, said Harriet Damant, a member who, at 83, prides herself on being the oldest in the group.

"You've got to learn a little about everything," Damant said. "There's training, but you learn the most as you're going through the books."

Each time a box is filled with books for the sale, it's entered into a thick three-ring binder with a number and category, such as fiction, nonfiction or children's. There are 60 boxes of children's books alone this year, equal to roughly 2,400 books, Britt said.

One category is called "weird and wacky" for books that just don't seem to fit anywhere else, Britt said.

Besides books, there are other items for sale, including large wall maps, some at least 6 feet tall, printed on heavy paper. Organizers say they aren't sure where the maps came from but say they look like something that was hanging on the wall at a school.