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Found a weird pattern at the used book store that changed how I pick books for our club
I was at Half Price Books in Austin last month digging through the fiction section for our next pick. I noticed almost every copy of a popular book had notes in the margins from at least three different people. Turns out that book had been passed around a small reading group before it ended up there. I picked it up for $4 and brought it to our meeting. The different opinions written in the margins sparked a way better debate than if we had all read clean copies. Has anyone else tried using a used book with previous reader notes for your club pick?
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the_james1mo ago
Is it possible those margin notes actually preserve a specific moment in the book's life that we're missing out on? Like, maybe that copy was part of a book club that met in that same neighborhood ten years ago, and their hot takes are now a little historical artifact. We always talk about how reading is a conversation with the author, but nobody ever mentions that it's also a conversation with everyone who read the same physical copy before you. It's like getting to eavesdrop on another group's discussion without having to sit through their awkward small talk.
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