A book’s worth

I am going to be mov­ing. Any­one who has expe­ri­enced that—and has an asso­ci­a­tion with books—knows what it means: Mov­ing books. In our sit­u­a­tion, we must weed the books—to pass on those which we think we no longer desire, which won’t fit in our new home. 

I locat­ed a used book­store which said they would take them. I had no wish to sell them, being hap­py to sup­port a used book store, one of my most beloved insti­tu­tions. When I brought in the first six box­es (of many more) I said to the young own­er; “There’s a lot of junk here, but you’ll find some good stuff.”

(Note: I’ve read a lot of the “junk.”)

He said, “It’s very unusu­al for you to say that. Most peo­ple who bring in books say they are all valuable.”

So what makes a book valu­able? I am not think­ing about the fine points of book col­lect­ing, rare books, first edi­tions, incunab­u­la, etc. I ask, what makes a book valu­able to its own­er, its read­er? If I were to list all the pos­si­ble cri­te­ria, it would take a book in itself. Which, I guess, is my point. The val­ue of a book lies, not so much in the book itself, as in the myr­i­ad com­plex­i­ties of the read­er. A book reveals very lit­tle when com­pared to what the book reveals about the read­er. There’s its true value.