Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about the used books.
Do you frequent second hand book stores? Have you ever bought a book home only to find anything interesting within their pages?
I am very lucky there are no good used book stores around here. Yes, lucky, because my overabundance of unread books is bad enough as it is. Between ARCs and library books and books I have bought, I am really not in the market for more books. But...it is so hard to pass up a bargain and I am not really good with temptation. The niece and I have gone a few time to an Amish market some distance from home. A number of Amish vendors and some other stores as well. I love the great spice and bulk candy store...the meat market...all the sausages. Fresh eggs and produce and surprising nice crabcakes. But she actually had to drag me away from the used book store. It is cruel to allow things like that in public.
But even with no good used book stores nearby, I do find ways to purchase a number of used books. The library is one source of my downfall. I have mentioned it before, but as you get off the elevator and go into the adult floor of our local branch, they have tables and bookshelves loaded with used books for sale. I mean 50 cents...how can you say no? I go to pick up one books and come home with three. Or four..
And then there is the wonderful Amazon marketplace. When a book is $4 with shipping for many, many books, it is a lot easier to click "purchase" than on a full priced new book.
But never, never have I found anything in any of these books. Not a note, a bookmark or a photograph. No money, lottery ticket or pirate map. Maybe these vendors online and the folks at the library are checking them first, but I have never seen as much as a slip of paper in one of them.
Rather disappointing, but as someone else answering this question said (sorry, but I forget who) the only thing I have found in these books are some good stories. Some great characters, beautiful ideas and hours and hours of entertainment and after all, that is the most important thing, isn't it?
I love used book stores, but like you I really don't need any more books. I don't buy nearly as much as I used to.
ReplyDeleteI love that- finding good stories. That's the best thing to find in a used, or any, book. :-)
ReplyDeleteI did find a bookmark in a used book once, but it wasn't anything special.
ReplyDeleteThe stories are the treasure, everything else is just bonus lol.
ReplyDeleteThe only things I ever found are a grocery list and a prayer card. Chucked out the list because there was nothing on there I needed, said a quick prayer for "Rita" and then threw that out. Alas, no lottery tickets or pirate maps for me either.
ReplyDeletestill, a $100 bill and a good story would be nice.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I found are just receipts. I'd be happy if I can find a bookmark, haha.
ReplyDeleteI love used bookstores, but I haven't found anything exciting between the pages.
ReplyDeleteI've found a bookmark here and there, and once I found a Metro-North train ticket in a used book purchased halfway across the country (I grew up on the rail line).
ReplyDeleteMy bff and I both have a habit of using receipts as bookmarks, and a few times she's passed books on to me, sometimes years after purchase. It's pretty fun squinting at the faded paper to see where she was when she bought the novel I'm reading three or four years ago.
The vast majority of my books come from Half Priced Books, but I think the most I have ever "found" in one of those bargains is some underlining where I scratched my head and wondered why they found that particular passage significant.
ReplyDeleteI loved the title of this post :)
I am thinking, after reading these comments with no one finding anything interesting, that we should intentionally plant interesting things in books for others to find.
ReplyDeletelike pirate maps!!
OK ... so it isn't just me. There really are no good used bookstores in our area. I thought perhaps I was missing something. How can this be possible????
ReplyDelete