phyllostachys thirteen: Used Books - Read 'em!

Used Books - Read 'em!

I am addicted to many things in life: breathing is chief amongst them addictions, but also coffee, daydreaming, the stock market, bamboo, used books and the opposite sex...not necessarily in that order. As with most addictions, each finds its way into all the nooks and crannies of my life (sequentially, of course - men can multitask as well as women...as long as the tasks are sequentially ordered! ;-).

Used books are no exception. I haven't found a used bookstore I haven't liked (although like/dislike has a graduated scale) - each offers hours of browsing and thinking. But, the best used bookstores are sometimes those without a store presence. Let me give you an example.

I've found a cool used-book bookstore called Paradox Books near where I work in Wheeling, West Virginia. I've made some great finds at Paradox, from books on wines of the world, to great sci-fi, and more recently, a $1 copy of Benjamin Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" (New Revised Edition, (c) 1964). In keeping with the area's flavour, Paradox also has a full range of Playboy's, dating back to the late 60's. ;-)

Aside from selling books, etc., inside, Paradox has a large bookshelf outside of it's front door, somewhat protected from the weather. This shelf is there so that the book-addicted person, who comes and finds the store closed for some reason, has the chance of satisfying his or her thirst for yet another used book. In addition to this outdoor bookshelf, Paradox has a table of books in the Centre Market (the cool little market in which Coleman's Fish Market is an anchor tenant) which are free for the taking. Yesterday, I perused these books during my lunch break, and walked away with two tomes: "The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions" (by the system's Board of Governors, (c) 1961), and "Modern Introductory Analysis" (a Houghton Mifflin textbook from 1964). I nearly picked a book on an introduction to symbolic logic...but an inquiring mind can latch onto only so many new tangents of thought/learning. ;-)

So, an addiction appeased for a few more days. Although I'm currently reading the "Intelligent Investor" book, I really want to learn more about the Fed, now that we're having a changing of the guard at the helm of the Fed (from Greenspan to Bernanke). I suppose I could go to the Fed's website (or to www.wikipedia.org, for that matter), but a book still has lots of appeal. I'll crack the other book to see what I can learn in a short time about analysis (mathematics is a foreign language I'm continually trying to expose myself to)...and to see what ideas I can introduce to my 4-yr-old. ;-)

So, go read a book...a used book!

..phyllostachys.