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Comment on Do charity bookshops drive out other second-hand bookshops?parent

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secondhand books are generally outdated, undesirable, and/or damaged

This is an odd take, to me.

When I was still in school, I’d seek out texts with as many handwritten notes in them as I could find! That was an added value for sure and one only available second-hand.

Now that eBooks are a thing I use them almost exclusively for schlock-type books: mass market paperbacks for well known SciFi franchises, for example, are all eBooks now. I wouldn’t buy these any other way now, but when I did buy paperbacks they went right to secondhand. The value for those was that they were cheaper.

But for any other type of book, if I am buying it, its a classic book. Maybe it won some awards, maybe it is even out of print!

None of this feels like a waste to me in any way, and I will admit I do not read a lot by the standards of folks here.

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