It's always interesting to take a box of books culled from one's shelves to a used bookstore, and see which ones they choose. I suppose it depends a lot on sellability as well as shelf space and demand, but quite often the books I expect to be taken are discarded for those I have trouble remembering why I bought, and have no idea why anyone else would be interested in them. Anyway, I just took an overflowing box to Title Wave Books in Albuquerque, only to have the clerk pull out a meagre stack of mass-markets, bypassing the decent hardbacks and (admittedly bescribbled) various editions of Homer. Hmph. Well, the St. John's library can have the rest for their booksale in the spring--and I can't really complain about the books purchased by Title Wave, since they paid for the few paperbacks I wanted to buy.

Title Wave has been one of my favorite bookstores ever since I was introduced to the parent store in Anchorage (there are only two stores, one in Anchorage and one in Albuquerque--very odd to have lived near both of them!). It's a great store, crammed with books of all kinds for very reasonable prices, and apparently they also sell books online. The store in Anchorage was much more personable, being in an old house so that one wandered up and down stairs, around corners, and into nooks; however, it recently moved to a new site which I'm sure is nice because of its size, but can't have the atmosphere of the original. The Albuquerque store is also somewhat lacking in charm, although this is always forgivable when one discovers hard-to-find fantasy anthologies, obscure translations, or treasures of children's literature.