Not in my case. Take one of my pet interests, world history. A new book store is stuffed to the gills with popular history, most of which is of little interest to me ( not that popular history is necessarily bad, but it is less likely to appeal to me ). A used bookstore on the other hand, especially one near a university, is far more likely to have obscure academic press titles that I find far more alluring.
Or take novels - a lot of good stuff is out of print. Go to a new book store sf section and you might never see anything by dead guys like Jack Vance or Roger Zelazny. Used book stores however are cornucopias of inexpensive old novels, including stuff you haven’t read in a 20 years but suddenly have a hankering to try again. Heck one of my favorite authors as a dog-crazy tween was collie-fancier Albert Payson Terhune who worked primarily in the inter-war years - even in the 1970’s the only place you’d find 95% of his output was used bookstores.
Nah, I like store cats and all the rest just fine. But hippy vibes aren’t a primary reason to visit them. Now to be honest I do 90+% of my book shopping online and I’m happy to kill time in a new bookstore. But used bookstores have their niche.
Long ago I found a goldmine when I discovered Erle Stanley Gardner. He created Perry Mason but he wrote Sci-Fi, Western and other detective stories too. I love his writing and I scored the used book stores and bought all the books I can find.
There are different types of used bookstores, just like Walmart is not like Macy’s which is not like Neiman Marcus. The recent paperback variety of used book stores exist, but they’re not the norm. There are also stores of fairly recent books, many of them paperback but many hardcovers as well. The Half Price Books chain is one of these. These there are the antiquarian used book stores that sell rare and valuable old books, along with more modern ones that the average person can afford. They tend to have very few modern paperbacks, perhaps just a small section if someone stumbles in or is accompanying a spouse.
Because they’re cool, and you never know what you will find in them.
Signed, a person who volunteers at the library bookstore and briefly considered opening my own used bookstore. I guess I actually did, because I rent space in an antique mall and also have an Amazon account.
I stumbled onto this gem out in the middle of nowhere while on vacation last summer. When I saw the sign, I assumed it was a small storefront, and was very surprised to find a full barn! :eek: Even better yet - they were preparing for a $1 sale that weekend, mostly consisting of things that didn’t belong in their regular store, and I loaded up.
One of the beauties of an independent business: I found one book that was priced at $40, and he reduced it to $20 when I told him I didn’t want to pay that much for it. Still haven’t read it, but I did buy it. It was a Dr. Gordon Seagrave (“Burma Surgeon” author) book I had never heard of.
Funny you should mention Vance. One of my most recent acquisitions was Tales of the Dying Earth (from a Friends of the Library sale), which I’d been looking for for quite some time, after hearing how influential he was on the genre. Lots of luck finding that in any chain bookstore, but there it was.
I like them because they inevitably have a section filled with old hardcover books considered ancient by most. I’ve found some real gems that way. One of my favorites was Prescott’s Conquest of Peru in two volumes, 1876 ed.(?) It’s fun to find things like that: old and worth the read!
When I used to go to bookstores, I preferred the Used ones due to price. Some of them were also pretty sprawling and probably had just as many, if not more, books than the big-box new bookstores. (I haven’t gone to a bookstore in quite a while because after I got my first Kindle, I realized that it completely took away my major problems with physical books, and I haven’t really read a physical book in… at least 5 years)
There was a big used bookstore in a shabby old brick building here, years ago, and I haunted that place. I found used hardcover novels - at least half a dozen - by my favorite author. What a score! I felt like I won the lottery. (The Borders store at the mall had maybe one copy of one paperback by that author on the shelf.) This was pre-internet, and it was fun, too, searching the shelves for other books by other favorite authors, and there were nice coffeetable books, relatively inexpensive. After a time, though, I stopped going as no NEW books were ever coming in. It was the same thing, week after week, nothing ever changed.
If the book has already been read, they’re usually more comfortable when retelling the story.
I guess I actually did, because I rent space in an antique mall and also have an Amazon account.
It was a Dr. Gordon Seagrave (“Burma Surgeon” author) book I had never heard of.