January 6, 2006

Shelf Life

By JEFFREY J. WILLIAMS

Bookstores have a kind of aura. Not the gleamingly lit chains, but the well-stocked used bookstore, usually with the faint tickle of dust in the air, piles of books crowding the aisles, and dollar carts outside the door. You might remember whiling away an afternoon leafing through this or that book, finding a first edition of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or a pricey university press book for $2.50, or browsing with a friend. The aura wears off, however, if you've worked in a

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