Wild books

Virginia Woolf

Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.

Virginia Woolf

There truly is something wild about the books one finds at a used book store or a library sale or the book table at a Goodwill store. They may not be organized in any way. They may be forgotten books by forgotten authors. Or they be former bestsellers who now years later nobody cares to read. And the books certainly are homeless, some of them looking as bedraggled as an old dog at the pound.

Each of these books has an unknown history, although some of them may have the name of a previous owner printed on the inside front cover.

Perhaps the saddest-looking used books are the newer ones, whose previous owners didn't think enough of them to keep them very long after their purchase, whether read or unread. Older books must have had an owner who treasured them on a shelf for years, or perhaps a series of owners who loved them before passing them on to someone else, who may also have loved them.

In a store that sells new books, all the books look new. They appear more domesticated, as Virginia Woolf put it. Or perhaps they are just virginal. With used books, one never knows. Some look as good as new. Others show their age. Some have pages folded over. Some have coffee stains or food stains. Some may even have passages underlined, a clue showing that a previous owner found something of value inside.