What Makes a Used Book Special?

Books are the core of a human being’s sanity especially in times like the pandemic when all of us have exhausted our social media content, we’ve Netlflix-ed for days and having a brain drain is inevitable. Books have been the very first teachers we’ve had while some people accumulate the habit of reading and some don’t, it is books everyone resorts to in the end because not every great author went digital and not every bestseller became a movie!

In the world of sustainable living, we make sure everything is upcycled, be it clothes, vessels, things as huge as cars and as simple as books. However hard you try to ignore the sad truth, throwing away a book definitely means wasting every paper that went into making it for someone to read. Books anyways don’t discriminate, they suit every human hand and mind.

If second-hand cars and books are compared, the former is devalued and degraded more than a second-hand car even though the gift of being able to comprehend and have a good book in one’s life is one of the greatest pleasures to mankind. When a car and a book is new the very first owner relishes the fact that they’re the first to touch it, use it, and how can we leave behind the smell of a new car or a new book! However, when both of them are passed onto someone else, the analogy previously mentioned starts falling apart.

While the comparison of a book and a car is nothing close to being similar to what each goes through in situations of being second hand, let’s take a look at why second-hand books are special:

Know Why Second Hand Books (Used Books) Are Special:

#1 - They’re Cheap:

The very first benefit of using a used book is getting to read the same story at a lesser price than buying a new book! Who doesn’t love themselves some money-saving? However, there are second hand or rather passed on from person to person old books that have been able to fetch as much as a whopping $7.9 million dollars when auctioned. Some of these books are as old as 200 years.

#2 - They Have a History:

If someone tells us a note written at the very beginning of a used book for the person it was meant for initially doesn’t make their heart smile, they’d be lying! Second-hand books have a history, they’ve been gifted with notes, passed on to other people some of who may have marked what they liked, some may have made notes on the bottom of the pages while some might’ve dog eared pages they liked reading again and again. The smell of an old book, the pages that have become soft and yellow over time is in itself a poetic experience.

Also Read: 5 Reasons Why It Is Better To Buy Used Books

#3 - They Have a Unique Charm:

Imagine having the 90’s print of a famous Shakespeare novel vs having one in 2021 with illustrations that might take away the entire charm in the sense of which is as originally written. Charm often comes with things that are vintage, that might seem worn out at first, writing that belongs to an entirely different era. And so we can be very sure the charm of a second-hand book cannot be replaced.

#4 - They Help Save the Planet:

If you switch to reading used books even you can help save the planet! A book has an endless life it could go one with its pages and prints forever, while re-prints waste a lot of paper which in turn means cutting down trees. Hence, if you recycle an already used book you’re doing your bit to save this planet which is all we have.

#5 - They Might Be Your Last Choice:

There are times when a publisher might discontinue the re-print of a book however much it might’ve been in demand owing to reasons of their own. That is when you know there are only a few and finite copies of such books. That is when second-hand books are your only hope and your last choice.

Also Read: Pre Loved Children Books

The cycle of passing on books once you’re done with them will not only bring about the recycling of books to be a new ‘trend’ of sorts but will also make people realize how reading or purchasing second hand books has nothing to do with how a new book feels like. Most book lovers are really careful about their books, hence it might not always be so that a second hand book will always look old and dusty. 

Books are books, how they make you feel won’t change, the story and message they carry won’t change irrespective of how new or old they are.