Should I Buy Used Books?
Nov 07 '01
The Bottom Line If you're just trying to stimulate the economy, buying oil rigs and Jimmy Choo's is a lot more efficient.
I. No
As a general rule I don't advocate buying used books, anymore than I would used food, used athletic supporters, used Kleenex, or used Yuletide logs. And I'm not easily fooled by that euphemism pre-owned, either, as in "may I show you a pre-owned Lexus?" or "Pre-Owned Boys' Underpants with NFL Logos, $150 a pair" -- a rather horrific sign I saw posted in a bus kiosk the other day.
And recently I have formed the opinion that reading books in general is a bad idea, as it has become tainted with the stain of Oprah. It's not enough that Oprah rules the Universe; no, that by itself will not satisfy her. It's not enough that Oprahology has surpassed Scientology and the Tupperware religion in number of adherents and their overall level of retardation and household income. You would think Oprah, having achieved all this plus the love of several dogs and a rich black man, would be content to rest on her laurels, to sit back on her big meaty haunches and soak in all the adulation. But no, Oprah will not be satisfied until she has become the arbiter of mass literary taste for 280 million Americans, and until she has said the name "Michael Kors" enough times on the air that Michael Kors finally sends her a couple free cashmere sweater sets.
A few months ago my mother and I had one of those frequent conversations that begins with her saying, "Have you ever heard of [insert name of insanely famous celebrity}]?" (My mother hears about these people at work, which was also where she picked up the idea that gay people always wear purple, unless they are wearing black.) This time it was Oprah.
"Yes, unfortunately, " I said, "but you should never, EVER watch her show. Her name is Harpo spelled backwards, she can crush coconuts between her thighs, and she is the embodiment of Satan and everything else that threatens to destroy our great nation. Plus, it costs $150 to join her Book Club and that doesn't even include the bookmarks. Pass the Brussels sprouts."
In my internet "book club", where we rarely discuss books because we are so busy discussing bedskirts and Brazilian waxes, we are planning to have "OPRAH WINFREY, SUCK MY DICK" stickers printed up that we are going to clandestinely stick on all books that don't have the Oprah's Book Club imprimatur.
II. Why Buy, When You Can Steal?
My home library quickly became the envy of everyone in my family, except my one sister who hasn't read a book since What To Expect When You're Expecting eight years ago, forcing me to defend it with whatever weapons are at hand. Over the years my other sister and brother have felt free to browse at leisure and take whatever they please back to their own homes. It took me awhile to notice that One Hundred Years of Solitude was missing, but I finally blew a gasket. "If you don't return that book," I told my sister, "I am going to have you killed." Five years later, she returned it. I had smacked her around a bit in the intervening time period, but for unrelated things.
You may remember the Quality Paperback Book Club, whose business model entailed allowing customers to choose four books for free without any further obligation to buy a single book. I did this about eight times until I had pretty much exhausted their offerings. I found out my sister was in on the scam too, when I started receiving the same QPBC selections I already owned as Christmas gifts.
In the meantime, I had stolen my father's C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy, whose cool sci-fi covers from the 60's I had been admiring since I was five. When I finally learned to read, at the age of 11, I absconded with Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. Every time my father came into my library to try to reclaim them, I beat him back with a willow switch.
One Christmas I gave my mother Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, mostly so I could read it myself. My father watched her open it, and his face fell as he held in his hands the v-neck sweater I had given him. Before the fireplace embers were even cool, he had "borrowed" it from her and was underlining passages. I quickly put a stop to that. "Horatio Alger is really coming back in style," I told him. "Here's a copy of Andy Grant's Pluck." I grabbed the Bloom and stuffed it in my pants.
Every time I bought a Best Short Stories collection it would end up in my brother's room. When I went to visit his and his wife's new Manhattan apartment last spring, I paused to admire his collection of expensive art and architecture books. There in the middle of them was the Collected Poems of Carl Sandburg I had gotten for my 11th birthday, with my name inscribed in tiny 5th grade cursive. I thought about stealing a big coffee table book, but they can really weigh you down when you're running from the scene of the crime.
"Can I borrow this?" I asked a boyfriend the night we broke up, reaching for a copy of Paul Fussell's Class. He was so afraid of me by that point I knew he would never come over and ask for it.
So, like I said, I don't read books anymore, but that certainly doesn't have to stop me from enjoying them -- I can spend hours thinking of how I next want to catalogue them, for example. And if you ever come over to my house I will let you sit on my relatively new sofa and I may even offer you a drink, but if you even reach out a hesitant finger to touch the lowliest of my books, I will bitch slap you like Dr. Phil abusing a weepy soccer mom.
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