Why I Love Used Book Stores
I love going to used bookstores because they’re Nerd history.
If you haven’t been to one, let me state two things:
- What, really? Did you get to this site by accident? Did you miss the “nerd” in the title?
- You really, really need to go to one if at all possible. The bigger the better.
Why? Because a good used bookstore is a giant, somewhat erratic, reasonably priced guide to we nerds, geeks, and otaku.
I love finding oddball old books, things I’d never find otherwise. Worn, with notes in the margins, I can find books I’d never have seen because they aren’t published anymore, because they’re forgotten, because they were too weird for the mainstream. Someone sold them off, and that person left a record of some worthy work or odd finding that can let you experience a little fragment of geekery.
Among the books and tapes and videos you can find a record of tastes past. The entire series of manga sold off as someone isn’t interested. The three copies of the same book from three different sources tells you what was popular once – and what now is not. You get a record of what’s not big for people any more – and a chance to catch up.
You can find reams of books that didn’t sell. Too obscure, too similar, too badly timed, badly marketed, unwanted. A book may never have made it, a reprint of a popular book may have been too weird or ill-timed. All the failures testified to by the fresh copies of books that never saw a bookstore tells you what didn’t work – and maybe gives you access to hidden gems.
Finally, there’s what’s not there, a reminder of what’s timeless. What’s missing tells you what’s still popular, what’s still beloved, what people won’t give up.
So I recommend a trip to a used bookstore, my fellow nerds, whether it’s a regular thing or something new to you. It’s our history in many-faceted form.
Oh and the prices? Great.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
