Unsigned Books
It’s time for yet another deep thought brought to you from a passage in Shaun Bythell’s Diary of a Bookseller. I’ll start by saying that I love new books. If a book has been published recently, I justify the cost of a clean, new copy by knowing that my purchase helped the author’s sales rank so I actually just gave myself the gift of possible future books because it will help them get another book deal.
But if it’s an older book and sales figures aren’t going to affect future book deals, I save money (and trees) and buy used. We have great second-hand book options around me, and I go several times per week. Can’t get the amazing finds if you don’t hang out in the store and grab them as they come in.
But I’ve never thought about the book donors––the regular people who provide the books I’m buying at the second-hand shop.
Bythell writes about how interesting it is to hold a book that you know belonged or was touched by someone of historical significance. He says on page 275:
Like the Walter Scott signature and the Florence Nightingale inscribed book, there is something that makes you feel connected to those people when you handle material like this. Perhaps the more interesting mystery is that you never know who has handled all the unsigned, un-inscribed books that come into the shop, and what their secret history has been.
2 comments
That is such a cool thought! I could be touching a book that Brene Brown once held. Or Melissa Ford!
I love your last sentence. That’s really lovely. And is part of the romance of a tangible book, rather than an e-book.