3 ms·

From personal experience, what has made me rarely go to second-hand bookshops (or bookshops of any kind) is they typically have a really bad selection. The amou

From personal experience, what has made me rarely go to second-hand bookshops (or bookshops of any kind) is they typically have a really bad selection. The amount of trash printed is insane, and not only do people tend to keep the gems, but they also tend to suck them out of second hand bookshops, so only really useless books are left.

karaterobot 6y ago
I've found that it's hard to find specific books you know you want, unless they were really popular, but it's easy to find something interesting you've never heard of before.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  That, the chance to happen upon something you didn't know you wanted, is what adds to the charm of second-hand bookshops. A few weeks ago I picked up Umberto Eco's Misreadings in the second-hand section of our local bookshop. It's a collection of short stories from the mid twentieth century translated in English in the nineties. I grabbed it for a closer look because the author was known to me (The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum), and because the back of the book introduced one of the stories therein as a pastiche of Nabokov's Lolita, wherein a certain Umberto Umberto (heh) pines for an elderly lady referred to as 'Granita' (incidentally, 'Nonita' in the Italian original). That story was a delight to read and totally worth it.¹ I also would never have found, never mind purchased that book online. My biggest source of books is a yearly book-fair (in Deventer) where I will gladly spend hours trawling through banana boxes for cheap paperbacks and random chance finds. (Except this year due to bloody you-know-what.) So hurray for the serendipity of second-hand bookshops! 1: Anyone who has read and enjoyed Lolita ought to read this short Umberto Eco story: https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2008/08/24/granita/ https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2008/08/24/granita/
  - pasabagi 6y ago
    I think this very much depends on where you are. In england, culture has always been a dirty word, so second hand bookshops have the kind of books english people read, which are dismal. In germany, I've had much better luck - packed shelves of reclam-edition books, for instance.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
The problem with used books stores is they always have book two of a series, but never book one :)
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Book publishers do the marketing all wrong. They publish the first in a series as a tease to buy the rest. They should start with the second book in the series, then people would be haplessly impelled to buy the first one!

karaterobot 6y ago

I've found that it's hard to find specific books you know you want, unless they were really popular, but it's easy to find something interesting you've never heard of before.

Freak_NL 6y ago
That, the chance to happen upon something you didn't know you wanted, is what adds to the charm of second-hand bookshops. A few weeks ago I picked up Umberto Eco's Misreadings in the second-hand section of our local bookshop. It's a collection of short stories from the mid twentieth century translated in English in the nineties. I grabbed it for a closer look because the author was known to me (The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum), and because the back of the book introduced one of the stories therein as a pastiche of Nabokov's Lolita, wherein a certain Umberto Umberto (heh) pines for an elderly lady referred to as 'Granita' (incidentally, 'Nonita' in the Italian original). That story was a delight to read and totally worth it.¹ I also would never have found, never mind purchased that book online. My biggest source of books is a yearly book-fair (in Deventer) where I will gladly spend hours trawling through banana boxes for cheap paperbacks and random chance finds. (Except this year due to bloody you-know-what.) So hurray for the serendipity of second-hand bookshops! 1: Anyone who has read and enjoyed Lolita ought to read this short Umberto Eco story: https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2008/08/24/granita/ https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2008/08/24/granita/
- pasabagi 6y ago
  I think this very much depends on where you are. In england, culture has always been a dirty word, so second hand bookshops have the kind of books english people read, which are dismal. In germany, I've had much better luck - packed shelves of reclam-edition books, for instance.

SubiculumCode 6y ago

The problem with used books stores is they always have book two of a series, but never book one :)

WalterBright 6y ago
Book publishers do the marketing all wrong. They publish the first in a series as a tease to buy the rest. They should start with the second book in the series, then people would be haplessly impelled to buy the first one!