![]() Taste isn’t linear-with only a bit of effort, I’ve discovered diverse voices and engaging perspectives across the decades. ![]() Those efforts aside, I don’t think a book should be dismissed just because it’s not still warm from the presses. ![]() (Cleveland’s Loganberry Books once brilliantly shelved all its books by male authors spine-in during Women’s History Month.) It’s a challenge we engage with by highlighting women authors and authors of color, and in some cases supplementing donations and estate-sale purchases with our own secondary-market purchases. Our challenge is to curate shelves that showcase history’s best minds without propagating its worst attitudes. We know the canonization of primarily white male authors wasn’t an accident of history, and it often came at the expense of silencing other voices. One discussion that regularly pops up among the staff is whether our selection is current enough or if our shelves are in danger of becoming a museum to unevolving taste, the way my husband’s music playlist loops only songs from the 70s (sorry, honey). Of course, that very immutability might deserve some scrutiny. Many secondhand-seekers lean on Thoreau’s advice to “read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” A used book’s very endurance is a reassuring vote of confidence that’s harder to find in a new bookstore, where untested titles offer little to go on besides literary world hype and a polished publisher’s blurb. They’re also a good place to start when I get anxiety over the impossibility of making a dent in the world’s literary offerings. Each one offers a considered selection of literature that has outlived passing trends. My favorite used bookstores don’t pad their shelves with outdated computer manuals collected from garage sale free bins. I’ve learned to treat a visit to a used bookstore less like a treasure hunt and more like a nature walk. Or when they do, that predetermined search is just what brings them in the door-it doesn’t give them blinders to everything else the store has to offer. The difference between those who leave disappointed and those who leave delighted is simple: the latter group doesn’t come in looking for a specific title. To me, that’s like walking into an art gallery, asking “Do you have any de Koonings?” and then immediately leaving if the answer is (as should usually be expected) a no.įor another type of customer, though, my “no” is just the first part of their experience in the store. What comes as a letdown is when I have to reply “No, sorry”-more often than not, the customer spins around and leaves without even a glance around the store. For older titles, our inventory isn’t catalogued and changes daily, but I’m more than happy to search our stock in the relevant section, with occasional success. Used books have to be circulated to the public, digested, and then passed through households and among friends like persistent rumors before they make their way to us. Often I know immediately that we don’t have the book in question, simply because it’s a new release. I’ve worked at the register for two used bookstores-the nonprofit Housing Works Bookstore in New York City’s Soho and the cooperatively run Adobe Bookstore in San Francisco’s Mission District-so I’ve fielded this question hundreds of times. A customer walks in, beelines to where I’m helming the front desk, and asks a variation of the same question: “Do you have this specific book?” There’s another type of customer encounter that happens at least once a shift at the used bookstore where I work, sometimes a dozen times. And visitors tend to linger as the daylight hours lengthen.Īt least some do. The relaxed flow of summer reading lends itself to spontaneous finds plucked from the shelf instead of purposeful winter tomes. Front doors can be left open to entice wander-ins. As the weather warms, more foot traffic passes by on the street. ![]()
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