Saturday, August 16, 2008

Used Books? Why Not?

One man's junk is another man's treasure.

I was walking through a nice High Park neighbourhood and what I noticed was the amount of used bookstores in the area. Some were more prestigious looking than others. The others were cleanly kept, down to earth-type shops. I made an effort to go into as many as I could to feed my interest and curiosity. Throughout my journey, a thing I noticed was the love of books the owners of the shops contained. This was evident by the amount of knowledge they had on every piece of writing. I went into one store and asked for a book on poetry. The man led me to the "poetry section", a rather small dark brown book shelf, and began talking about the most popular works, popular poets, and why he chose to sell some books over others. I left that shop with a type of awe.. these stores are definately not your Indigo or Chapter stores.. where the service is, meh, arranged by computer catologues. Here I was presented with many insights, person to person, of what I was interested in. Another bonus were the cheap prices! Bargain prices! and honestly the books were in tip top shape!

I'm on the verge of starting a trend: used books! cheap prices! bargain-a-paloozeeee!



1 comment:

mirror image said...

Hi, Welcome back from Australia!. It was quite a long time no C.
Using the used books idea is really a good one. Even when i was doing my graduation and later the transcription course, I bought dozens of them in just 30% of their original price, most of them in good condition. I saved a lot by this. What matters is the stuff in the book and as far as it is readable, whether it is new or used, who cares. And moreover anything till it is in the store and unsold it is new, once you buy it, it is old even for you as well.