Confessions of a Used Book Salesman

It's begins, the Salon piece, "I spend 80 hours a week trawling junk shops with a laser scanner. I don't feel good about it."

From the story...

I'm pretty sure I first heard about the practice of shopping for books with laser scanners in a story on NPR, which, as I recall it, disparaged their use as classless. And, really, it is precisely this. The book merchant of the high-cultural imagination is a literate compleat and serves the literate. He doesn't need a scanner, because he knows more than the scanner knows. I fill a different niche—I deal in collectible or meaningful books only by accident. I'm not deep, but I am broad. My customer is anyone who needs a book that I happen to find and can make money from.

"I heard about what you're doing," says someone from my old MFA program. "It's a really creative way of educating yourself."

"I don't read the books," I say.

"But you … look through them?"

No—I look through the books only to see if there are marks or stains.