Retired Books

I took some old books to COAS yesterday. Some were my dad's. Half were rescued from the recycling bin at work. (If I could stick the pages back in with glue, why couldn't the library?) One was a Spanish translation of a book by Stanislavsky, the acting coach. (I have no talent for acting, even back when I was fluent in Spanish, so why did I hold on to the book this long?)

My first instinct was to sneak them into my friend Betty's house. After all, she has hundreds of books lining her walls already. She'll never notice a couple dozen more. That wouldn't be practical, though. I'd have to find out exactly where in Socorro her house is (ever since they added that stoplight, I get lost), and I'd also have to learn and practice breaking and entering. I might as well just give the books away.

I also thought that, if the bookstore doesn't accept some of the books, I can ask the library if they want them for their collection or for their monthly book sale. That plan fell through, as the only ones the bookstore didn't take were the "ex libs".

I was pleasantly surprised when the bookstore did accept my two old almanacs and an old comic book price guide. I guess dated material still can be resold. The odd thing was that the kids (college age employees) only looked at the cover and the first three or four pages, to determine if they would accept the books. They didn't take the library books because they were "all cut up". (A square of the dust jacket was removed, to indicate it was no longer in circulation, but the rest of the jacket, plastic included, as well as the hardcover and the insides were perfectly fine -- once I reglued the pages -- and readable.) However, a child could have taken a crayon to page 47, and they never would have noticed.

I feel guilty returning these books to the recycling bin -- but I did give them one last read, so my mind is eased a bit. Anyone want some old or not-so-old mysteries, cheap?