This year’s Annual Salad Luncheon fundraiser for the Greenbrier County Public Library offers a fall favorite, apples, as the theme, in a new featured salad and as table centerpieces that will be available for sale.

Friends of the Greenbrier County Public Library will serve an extensive menu of salads, ham, turkey, rolls, coffee and tea from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 2 at the Lewisburg United Methodist Church.

Folks who look forward to particular dishes at the annual event can count on hot chicken salad, apple cabbage salad, hot German potato salad and an autumn risotto. The new salad, offered with vegetarians in mind, is a Waldorf recipe from library aide Becky Tipton. “We wanted to add to our variety of salads to accommodate our patrons,” said Library Director Ann Farr.

Also unique to this year’s Salad Luncheon will be books transformed into sculptures. The library’s staff members, led by Assistant Director Christy Carver, have spent hours folding pages according to certain patterns. The results, when the books are opened like accordions, are pieces of art that make unusual – and literary – centerpieces. Several books, including an old, nicely bound volume of Plutarch’s Lives, have become apples. The centerpieces will be available for sale at the luncheon.

Advance tickets are $10 and are available at the library at 152 Robert W. McCormick Drive in downtown Lewisburg, or from Friends members. The cost is $10.50 per plate at the door. (The Lewisburg United Methodist Church is at the intersection of Washington and Lee streets.) Children eat for $3.

This is the 36th anniversary of the Salad Luncheon, a fundraising event that dates back nearly to the beginning of the Friends group. The Friends of the Greenbrier County Public Library began in 1979 as an organization dedicated to promoting awareness of services provided by public libraries.

Fundraiser proceeds support library activities, services and programs, including a free weekly story hour for children, downloadable books, notary services and a paperback book exchange, as well as computer and Internet access.

More information is available by calling the library at 304-647-7568.