The Ethics of Used Books

We've finally gotten to the place where we realize that it's a contradiction to purport to care about the environment and buy water bottles all the time as a fashion statement. It's pretty good to just drink tap water, since the tap water in America is drinkable. No need to cart water all around the world and cover it in disposable plastic.

I think we need to come around a bit, similarly, on used books. Used books are very environmentally friendly: Buying used books means that people don't have to throw away their old books, and they don't have to buy brand new ones all the time (save the trees and still read!).

I give used books as gifts sometimes, but only to dear friends or family members, because I sense the stigma of giving used books, particularly if they aren't in mint condition (unless they're signed by the author or are first editions). But I really don't think that there should be a stigma about giving gifts of used books. What better way to share the books you love with other people in a way that encourages reuse? In addition, there's the wonderful smell of old books. There's the joy of imagining someone reading it before you, particularly if they signed their name in the front. There is the often superior quality of older books, unless they're those super cheap mass market paperbacks. (There is also the danger of finding a book with inane notes and highlighting, but that's just a risk you'll have to run.)

Another advantage of buying and reading used books is that it keeps you away from the idea that only new things are good. Somewhere (I think in an introduction he wrote to Athanasius' On the Incarnation) C.S. Lewis recommends reading two old books for every new one. New books are great--it's great to read reactions to contemporary life; it's great to be part of the contemporary literary conversation. But, it isn't good to reduce the literary conversation to what is new. It's good to read old books, too. (This isn't to say that you can only buy old used books--there are always a ton of new ones for sale, too.)

Credit: This idea came out of a conversation with Hopkins after her epic Epiphany party, which I am proud to say I shut down just under 24 hours after it began. Some of the ideas in it are straight up hers. Especially the part about it being a stigma to give used books as gifts unless they're first editions or signed. But probably the rest of it, too. The mostly unrelated rant about water bottles is mine. The other thing that really annoys me is making so many unnecessary things out of recycled paper as if it doesn't matter what we consume, as long as we nod our heads to the environmentalist movement.