Is it better to read new books, or used ones? Is there any down side to purchasing a second-hand copy of a classic? Sometimes you get the added benefit of reading the marginal notes of the owner who had the book before you. And there’s certainly the benefit of a lower cost. What are library books if not professionally used books?
What do you do with your books once they’ve been used? Sell them? Lend them out? Recycle them? Give them away? Some of us hold on to books more dearly than others. Some of us get creative and turn them into art projects or stacks to collect dust.
Books can certainly be re-read, and there’s always the fear that you’ll need to reference something in a book that you’ve only just given away. So we buy more bookshelves to hold the growing personal library we’re accumulating.
The best thing about books is that they don’t wear out easily. They can be read hundreds, perhaps countless times. Beloved books can be passed around a table or handed down through generations. (It’s harder to do that with e-books.) It’s easy to tell the best-loved books because of how worn they are—the pages frayed and the cover fading.