I had the privilege of a preview walk through, not pre-shop unfortunately, on Thursday. I was left gobsmacked by the quality of the offerings and the pricing.

While I have, at recent events, sometimes felt prices were creeping up into bookshop territory, that certainly isn't the case this time around.

With military history a favourite of mine I checked that out first and spotted some serious bargains.

Probably the pick, in terms of value, was a two-volume, 3000 page photographic history of the American civil war in excellent condition and, of course, in hardcover.

Local authors were well represented with Peter FitzSimons by the yard from $8 a volume, a paperback edition of the uncensored Lord Alanbrooke war diaries [as opposed to the Arthur Bryant versions] for $9, Les Carlyon's The Great War at $9 in immaculate hardcover guise and a relatively recent edition of Charles Beans' Anzac to Amiens for just $5.

This is a work that should be in the library of anybody with a serious interest in what the AIF did in World War I.

It is much more than just a condensation of the official history. Bean wrote the book years after some of the official volumes were published and, as a result, includes significant new material.

The maps are good and the end result ties together as a continuous narrative in a way the multi-volume history, with its mass of detail, does not.

Near-current releases, priced at far less than what their unsold mates are still on the shelves for, include Mark Dapin's The Nasho's War and Bruce Davies' Vietnam.

Classics and standards such as Chester Wilmot's The Struggle for Europe can be picked up for a song.

Looking further afield, Francophiles are in for some real treats with a 10 volume dictionary of the language and a rather saucy graphic novel cum cartoon about the misadventures of a castaway air hostess on offer.

And, if you really want to confound your enemies or are Kevin Rudd or both, then why not snap up The Art of War in Mandarin?

Moving into the classics and collectibles, I was shaken but not stirred by a beautifully presented and apparently leather bound facsimile set of Charles Dickens for $130.

My personal view is that the consecutively numbered 19-volume set of the AustraIian Dictionary of Biography sitting next to it was a much better buy at $100.

Folio Society collectors who, like me, don't want to pay the full tariff for these admittedly beautifully presented volumes, are also well catered for.

A boxed Iliad was just $20 and a boxed Cook's Voyages was even cheaper. You couldn't buy them in paperback for that.

Barbara Gillies, a volunteer for the past five years, agreed that both the quality and the quantity of the offerings was right up there in 2015.

"We've unloaded six semi-trailerloads [of books]," she said. "I've been really impressed by the quality. It is excellent. A lot of the baby boomers are downsizing and they are making us their first point of contact."

Barbara said Thursday was the calm before the storm and that there would be a lengthy queue, including dealers and serious collectors, waiting for the doors to open at 9am on Friday.

"After that it is going to be full-on," she said.