I love books; I always have. I have faint memories of browsing my local Waterstones as a kid; that’s where I got The Hobbit, a book that would forever cement my obsession with Tolkien and the fantasy genre and a book I will revisit fondly to recapture the lost magic of my youth.
I still love browsing books shops, and occasionally I’ll pick up a brand new book on a whim, but as I’ve gotten older, I think I actually prefer second-hand books. There's just something so charming about them. They have a history; one or maybe a dozen different hands have held the book you now hold. Different minds have pondered the same words you now read.
When you read a second-hand book, you now and forever have an intangible connection to the strangers that came before you. Think of that link as a cosmic library that spans time and place. You are the current steward of a book that has delighted or frustrated any number of readers before you and will continue to do so until it breaks apart at the spine.
Besides the romantic musings of cosmic connections to previous readers, used books also have a rather logical reason for being loved. They are cheaper to buy, and it’s also rather eco to have a book serve many different readers over the years.
What do you think of used books? Let me know in the comments section.
