[montalex]

Many years ago, in a land far from here, I worked in an independent bookstore. I was underpaid, of course, but received a decent discount on books. Also, in those days before computers, book publisher representatives would regularly visit the store to hawk their wares and to make sure missing titles were reordered. I'd get some freebies. I was young and trying to read myself an education so I accumulated many books, some in hardcover boxed sets (The Oxford Complete Works of Jane Austin!). When I moved out of state, I left around 2,000 books in my mother's basement, taking only enough to read for several lifetimes. When my mother sold her house, I had to go and extract the books. THere was no way I could transport them to my new home in Canada, so I borrowed a van and drove to a local used bookstore, which was closed. It was a fine, sunny Sunday, so I just opened the boxes and left them on the street for passersby to scavenge. It felt liberating!

Jump forward several years, and I now have almost 4,000 ebooks on my computer. my Calibre book folder is regularly backed up to a couple of usb drives. I hope I can afford an ereader and a computer when I'm in the old-folks home. If not, there's always the paper book library...