Like many people I picked up a love of books in college. If I have a
materialistic streak it comes out with books.
When I was younger I was simply trying to acquire books to build a personal library. So I just bought books. Way more than I could read. Simply having the books made me happy. That's the materialistic aspect I struggled with. The craving to own and acquire the books as physical objects. Some years ago, my personal library had neared 2500 volumes, so when I was diagnosed with cancer, I had a need to downsize that collection.
Over the past couple of years, though, I've begun rebuilding. But I'm more disciplined about my buying books. I typically have two or three books a week to review, but I tend to avoid buying unless it's a book from my (continually evolving) Amazon wish list.
A part of the struggle in limiting my buying is simply how much I love bookstores and shopping for books. Especially used bookstores. I've joked with Kendra that if I have a natural posture it's tilting my head to the right so I can read the spines of rows and rows of books in used bookstores -- McKay's in Knoxville is our favorite bookstore destination. I adore huge, sprawling used bookstores like McKay's.
A huge part of the fun of shopping in a used bookstore is the thrill of discovery. The lure of the hunt and finding something totally unexpected and awesome for an amazingly low price.
So what do I look for in used bookstores?
The main thing, as I said, are titles on my wish list -- books that I simply can't live without. But I'm also on the lookout for titles I've not seen in a bookstore before.
If you go to chain bookstores the titles get pretty predictable. I can pretty much tell you what is on the shelf right now of your local Books-a-Million (I have a membership, for the record). To keep a Bamm interesting you can't go into one but one or two times a month. If you visited a Bamm every week you'd quickly become bored as the selection doesn't change that quickly.
Which is why I prefer used bookstores. The stock is totally unpredictable. And most importantly it will have older and out of print titles that aren't on the shelf of the chain bookstore. Those titles are waiting there for you to discover them.
But as I've discovered recently, there's another reason to prefer used bookstores. When you're getting used books, there's a good chance you'll find something collectible. I'm not a huge collector and my tastes are quirky which keeps the prices down.
Recently, I was looking for a replacement copy of Fred Herzog's God Walk. Fred was the reason I went to Duke Divinity -- I'd wanted to study theology with Fred. Sadly, though, Fred died only 49 days into my first semester at Duke.
I found an inexpensive copy of the paperback version.
But my excitement came when I opened the cover:
What's more, the book includes notes that are in Fred's own hand! The book, it turns out, was one of the many editions that Fred used to teach his CT32 class at Duke.
If you start looking for rare and collectible books, first editions and such, every used bookstore becomes the possibility for the Great Discovery. We've all seen and heard stories about such discoveries. Someone finding something really rare and valuable sitting in a junk heap at a garage sale. That's the dream of a collector scanning the stacks in a used bookstore. The possibility of finding something really rare and special -- like an edition of a late teacher's own book that he's used in the past -- sitting on some dusty shelf.
That's now happened to me. I've made a great and unexpected discovery.
When I was younger I was simply trying to acquire books to build a personal library. So I just bought books. Way more than I could read. Simply having the books made me happy. That's the materialistic aspect I struggled with. The craving to own and acquire the books as physical objects. Some years ago, my personal library had neared 2500 volumes, so when I was diagnosed with cancer, I had a need to downsize that collection.
Over the past couple of years, though, I've begun rebuilding. But I'm more disciplined about my buying books. I typically have two or three books a week to review, but I tend to avoid buying unless it's a book from my (continually evolving) Amazon wish list.
A part of the struggle in limiting my buying is simply how much I love bookstores and shopping for books. Especially used bookstores. I've joked with Kendra that if I have a natural posture it's tilting my head to the right so I can read the spines of rows and rows of books in used bookstores -- McKay's in Knoxville is our favorite bookstore destination. I adore huge, sprawling used bookstores like McKay's.
A huge part of the fun of shopping in a used bookstore is the thrill of discovery. The lure of the hunt and finding something totally unexpected and awesome for an amazingly low price.
So what do I look for in used bookstores?
The main thing, as I said, are titles on my wish list -- books that I simply can't live without. But I'm also on the lookout for titles I've not seen in a bookstore before.
If you go to chain bookstores the titles get pretty predictable. I can pretty much tell you what is on the shelf right now of your local Books-a-Million (I have a membership, for the record). To keep a Bamm interesting you can't go into one but one or two times a month. If you visited a Bamm every week you'd quickly become bored as the selection doesn't change that quickly.
Which is why I prefer used bookstores. The stock is totally unpredictable. And most importantly it will have older and out of print titles that aren't on the shelf of the chain bookstore. Those titles are waiting there for you to discover them.
But as I've discovered recently, there's another reason to prefer used bookstores. When you're getting used books, there's a good chance you'll find something collectible. I'm not a huge collector and my tastes are quirky which keeps the prices down.
Recently, I was looking for a replacement copy of Fred Herzog's God Walk. Fred was the reason I went to Duke Divinity -- I'd wanted to study theology with Fred. Sadly, though, Fred died only 49 days into my first semester at Duke.
I found an inexpensive copy of the paperback version.
But my excitement came when I opened the cover:
If you start looking for rare and collectible books, first editions and such, every used bookstore becomes the possibility for the Great Discovery. We've all seen and heard stories about such discoveries. Someone finding something really rare and valuable sitting in a junk heap at a garage sale. That's the dream of a collector scanning the stacks in a used bookstore. The possibility of finding something really rare and special -- like an edition of a late teacher's own book that he's used in the past -- sitting on some dusty shelf.
That's now happened to me. I've made a great and unexpected discovery.