The Wareham Free Library and the Spinney Memorial branch will host monthly book auctions beginning this month.

Each branch will display three books on which library patrons can bid in a monthly silent auction.

The books are selected from the donations made to the Friends of the Wareham Free Library, which sells them to augment the library's budget.

The books are chosen from their value because of their age or their rarity, their inscription or their content, their illustrations or their edition, or something special about the "case" -- the outer protective part of the books.

At the main library in July are Life of General Grant by James P. Boyd; Norman Rockwell and the Saturday Evening Post: His Later Years, which contains full-color reproductions; and Daphne Du Maurier's Three Romantic Novels of Cornwall, which includes Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, and Jamaica Inn.

Spinney's offerings are: Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, the last of the trilogy of Little Women and Little Men; Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot, a first-edition of the poet's first published collection; and The Gam: True Whaling Stories by Capt. Charles H. Robbins.

Directions for bidding are posted at each site. Bidders must raise the bid by at least one dollar over the previous bidder.

Bidding for July books will close at 2 p.m. on July 31.