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Used Book Heaven

I love used bookstores.  While visiting one recently, I thought of how used books represent immortality to a writer.

As usual, I came out with mostly an armload of non-fiction.  I write mainly fiction, but non-fiction gives me the material with which to work.  Many of my ideas come from the world of what really happened, often to someone else.

Nevertheless, I lingered long over the fiction section.  Maybe it’s because it’s harder to find specific books of fiction.  I keep a list and I take it with me to stores—otherwise I get over-excited and can’t find anything.  I did spy an early set of Poe, but I left him for a more worthy owner.

The fact that many people came in on a pleasant Saturday kindled my hopes.  There’s so much you can do with a summer Saturday.  Spending it looking at old books is one that few select, but here I was among other inveterate readers.  Readers unite!

Used books mean that an author’s words continue after the original owner tires of, or expires of the thoughts of others.  You can tell so much about someone by looking at the books they have.  I picked up a copy of Shirley Jackson and was sorely tempted.  It was foxed, however, and not that old.

In the old and interesting section, there were two book-safes, made from old books.  A friend couldn’t figure out, at first, why two books wouldn’t come apart.  Opening one, she found the hidden compartment inside.  That, in itself, was the grounds for a story.

I wandered to the occult section, as I always do.  Not surprisingly, there were no old books there.  Used, yet, but those of any antiquity are, I believe, jealously guarded.  Age gives books verisimilitude.  “Time honored” is a phrase meant to capture precisely that dynamic.


Yet to have a book of fiction published, I stood there relishing the hope that someday, long after I’m gone, my books might find their way into used bookstores, and I will, therefore, live forever.


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