What Makes a Used Book Special - Bookends

1
What Makes a Used Book Special?
Books are the core of a human beings sanity
especially in times like the pandemic when all of
us have exhausted our social media content, weve
Netlflix-ed for days and having a brain drain is
inevitable. Books have been the very first
teachers weve had while some people accumulate
the habit of reading and some dont, 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
dont 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 ones 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 theyre 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.
2
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, lets
take a look at why second-hand books are
special Know Why Second Hand Books (Used Books)
Are Special 1 - Theyre 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 doesnt 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 doesnt
make their heart smile, theyd be lying!
Second-hand books have a history, theyve 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 mightve 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 90s
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
3
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 youre 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 mightve 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 youre
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 wont change, the story
and message they carry wont change irrespective
of how new or old they are. Original
Source https//bookends.ae/blogs/blog/what-makes-
used-book-special