I think the problem is that we’re afraid of dust. I say “we” to give myself the illusion that I am not the only adolescent who gets irked at a secondhand bookstore when my fingertips become enveloped by a film of grime. It’s not that I’m a hypochondriac or a neat freak. It’s just that I don’t like what that dust represents: abandonment, antiquity, and irrelevance. Any book that’s been sitting on a shelf for twenty-odd years is sitting there because it’s not worth the read, right? Some neighborly American dad threw that book and a myriad of others into a cardboard box, dropped it at the store’s stoop, and never thought about it again. Why should we (or I) sacrifice time rummaging through his undesirables? Why would I read something abandoned in its day, antiquarian in its condition, and irrelevant in its present? I hadn’t had a clue. That is until I experienced the unbridled joy of getting lost in a sea of dusty book jackets in a cavern preserving their integrity: the used bookstore.
In the past decade, we (and I do mean we this time) have seen a surge in independent bookshops. Not only do these stores showcase new authors with new perspectives that have been historically underrepresented, but they also serve as community centers, providing safe spaces, public programming and entertainment. Shopping at an independent bookstore is an act of community building, not just a consumer purchase, as Tony Dokoupil put it in an interview with two independent bookstore co-owners. An independent bookstore in itself seems to be an altruistic feat. Millennials have taken a centuries-old industry and updated it to highlight the voices younger generations want to hear in a space that respects their progressive politics. No more are the days of Book Row with old white professor types hiding stacks of books written by old white professor types. This adaptation is essential for bookselling to continue, but we should not disregard the prior literature and bookselling methods of yesteryear. The inclination to do so stems from a greater hesitation, particularly of younger generations, to read books written in long ago.
I feel as though younger generations have an obsession with accuracy. In a superficial sense, the internet has made our proximity to facts and information the closest it’s ever been, so we have the means to be accurate. However, in a substantial sense, our politics are more progressive, and we want to tell our own and other people’s stories in an accurate way, not in the way of our literary forefathers, many of whom discounted or misrepresented the perspectives of marginalized people. While the independent bookstore is seen as a haven for exploring one’s identity through literature, the used bookstore is seen as the place where exploration dies. The scientific data in these books is outdated, the perspectives are limited, and the conclusions drawn are now contestable.
However, as I discovered while rummaging today, reading books written thirty years ago doesn’t indoctrinate us with regressive politics like we’re worried it will. The reason we read old books is the reason we read: we seek a unique pleasure satiated only by the sweet nothings of an author. That pleasure isn’t ruined by an ignorant author but invigorated. When we read something outdated we are upset because we feel the words, we feel the anguish, and we are visibly gobsmacked staring at the page. These books move us, perhaps differently than they intended to, but deeply. That is the merit in reading older books. That merit should not be disregarded for its era nor for its coat of dust.
Once I recognized this, I realized that the bookshops housing these books weren’t cemeteries. These books weren’t abandoned. They were rescued. Secondhand bookstore gives these works a second life, an opportunity to be re-read and in a new light. Used bookstores house objects of affection that don’t grow old because they are dying; they are surviving.
Though the Secondhand Bookstore doesn’t share the depth and inclusiveity of a modern independent bookstore in its literary content and spatial environment, it gives us bibliophiles a worthy trait: perspective. In some cases one can spend hours rifling through out-of-print paperbacks and learn more than they would in a single hardcover published in the 2010s. Neither old nor new books have greater value. They simply teach us different things: the new, about our present understanding, and the old, about what understanding used to mean.
Image via The New York Times