...it's knowledge! I stumbled on this conversation while scouring on-line resources for a seminal book regarding culture and evolutionary processes that was only published in 1985, but is out of print and essentially unobtainable. I grew up in used book stores, one of my first memorable purchases was Lowell Thomas's With Lawrence in Arabia, I had to put it on layaway and save my allowance until I had the ten dollars to take it home. This was back in maybe 1970, since then I've bought hundreds and hundreds of used books and if anything, the exposure to authors and ideas contained in used books has lead me to purchase more new books. Prohibit, discourage, or infringe used book sales, and what you're doing is killing the growth of new readers of all books, and you're discouraging the spread of knowledge. Jeff Bezos should be commended for empowering readers and making a vast array of books available at one location through one simple process. The idea, by the way, that "most" or many folks are buying advance copies of books is spurious, and even if some few individuals are buying such works, shame on the publishing industry for encouraging the practice by attempting to pump-up the sales of selected authors by flooding all and sundry with advance copies. Bad books drive out the good, these same hot titles of today will be tomorrows faded remainders, next week's dog-eared selection on the hospital book-cart....Jeff Bezos has been brilliant to make readers and independent booksellers partners again, and I have had easy access to many used books--and have bought many new books I might never have known about--because of the incredible ease of using Amazon.com.
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